Page:Some Textual Difficulties in Shakespeare.djvu/22

4 volved, and that in the eloquent climactic passage where Juliet expectantly awaits the coming of the husband she has just married, it is a point that will be well worth settling permanently.

In starting out, let us keep one fact to the fore: Shakespeare was always true to human nature in any set of circumstances. He did not deal in elaborate mythological allusions and ingenious figures of speech in and for themselves; his expressions are such as will throw the deepest and most searching light upon the human heart, and that with an especial regard for the character speaking. Second: he does not jump quickly from one figure of speech to another with such mere liveliness of fancy as many critics think. He did this advisedly according to what might be accomplished by it; and in other cases he shows a remarkable faculty for sticking to the subject, so to speak, in long comparisons which are especially calculated to throw complete and dwelling light on the spirit of the speaker. He did this especially at those places where he wished to engage our minds for a longer space upon some point important in the action or in our conception of the character. The present is a case in point. Shakespeare fully expected, when he wrote this passage, that because he had paved the way and thrown about the word so many figurative expressions, all tending to the same point of view, we would understand the