Page:The Psychology of Shakespeare.pdf/160

Rh fishness, that of alarm. (There cannot be a doubt that at this time his conduct is thoroughly beyond his control. He is beside himself, and insane.)

Lear, who never appears more tranquil than when butt of the fool's jests, is diverted by them for a moments, and consents to laugh at his own folly ; his thoughts run upon his injury to Cordelia, and

the few but, the

one he has himself received :

“I did her wrong.

To take it again perforce : Monster ingratitude " He is conscious of his mental state, and even of its cause.

He feels the goad of madness already urging him, and strug gles and prays against it, and strives to push it aside. He knows its cause to be unbounded passion, and that to be kept in temper would avert it. “Oh, let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven

Keep me in temper; I would not be mad :'' This self consciousness of gathering madness is common in various forms of the disease. It has recently been pointed to by an able French author as a frequent symptom in that form of insanity accompanied by general paralysis. Ac cording to my own observation, it is a far more common symptom in that form of mania which developes gra dually from exaggeration of the natural character. A most remarkable instance of this was presented in the case of a patient, whose passionate but generous tem per became morbidly exaggerated after a blow upon the head.

His constantly expressed fear was that of im

pending madness; and when the calamity he so much dreaded had actually arrived, and he raved incessantly and incoherently, one frequently heard the very words of Lear

proceeding from his lips : “Oh, let me not be mad " Lear struggles against this temper, which he feels is leading towards madness; and even against the plain L

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