e. consciousness] doth make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action!"
It is an inherent peculiarity of a mind like Hamlet's that it should be
conscious of its own defect. Men of his type are forever analyzing their
own emotions and motives. They cannot do anything, because they always
see two ways of doing it. They cannot determine on any course of action,
because they are always, as it were, standing at the cross-roads, and see
too well the disadvantages of every one of them. It is not that they are
incapable of resolve, but somehow the band between the motive power and
the operative faculties is relaxed and loose. The engine works, but the
machinery it should drive stands still. The imagination is so much in
overplus, that thinking a thing becomes better than doing it, and thought
with its easy perfection, capable of everything because it can accomplish
everything with ideal means, is vastly more attractive and satisfactory
than deed, which must be wrought at best with imperfect instruments, and
always falls short of the conception that went before it.
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