' The _motif_ of the book, however, is one of
emotion primarily, or it would not have been written.
There is yet another subject upon which I feel tempted to say a few
words. D'Arcy in referring to Aylwin's conduct in regard to the cross
says:--
You were simply doing what Hamlet would have done in such
circumstances--what Macbeth would have done, and what he would have
done who spoke to the human heart through their voices. All men, I
believe, have Macbeth's instinct for making 'assurance doubly
sure,' and I cannot imagine the man who, entangled as you were in a
net of conflicting evidence--the evidence of the spiritual and the
evidence of the natural world--would not, if the question were that
of averting a curse from acting on a beloved mistress, have done as
you did. That paralysis of Hamlet's will which followed when the
evidence of two worlds hung in equipoise before him, no one can
possibly understand better than I.
Several critics have asked me to explain these words. Of course,
however, the question is much too big and much too important to
discuss here.
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