He wishes to will, but never wills.
His continual iteration of resolve shows that he has no resolution. He is
capable of passionate energy where the occasion presents itself suddenly
from without, because nothing is so irritable as conscious irresolution
with a duty to perform. But of deliberate energy he is not capable; for
there the impulse must come from within, and the blade of his analysis is
so subtile that it can divide the finest hair of motive 'twixt north and
northwest side, leaving him desperate to choose between them. The very
consciousness of his defect is an insuperable bar to his repairing it;
for the unity of purpose, which infuses every fibre of the character with
will available whenever wanted, is impossible where the mind can never
rest till it has resolved that unity into its component elements, and
satisfied itself which on the whole is of greater value. A critical
instinct so insatiable that it must turn upon itself, for lack of
something else to hew and hack, becomes incapable at last of originating
anything except indecision. It becomes infallible in what _not_ to do.
How easily he might have accomplished his task is shown by the conduct of
Laertes. When _he_ has a death to avenge, he raises a mob, breaks into
the palace, bullies the king, and proves how weak the usurper really was.
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