Page:The Psychology of Shakespeare.pdf/172

Rh destroys the casual concurrence of circumstances to pro duce a right direction, and the next moment she is tossing in the trough of the sea, with sails a-back, drifting help

less, the sport of wind and wave) Lear's first speech in this scene, contains a profound psycho logical truth: Kent urges him to take shelter in a hovel from the tyranny of the night, too rough for nature to endure; Lear objects that the outward storm soothes that which rages with in, by diverting his attention from it; which he may well feel to be true, though the exposure and physical suffering are at the very time telling with fearful effect upon his excited, yet jaded condition. In the excitement of insanity physical injury is not perceived, for the same reason that a wound is not felt in the heat of battle. But the injury is not the less received, and the sanatory guardianship of pain being abrogated, is more likely to be endured to a fatal extent without resistance or avoidance.

It is a cruel mistake, that

the insane are not injured by hardships from which they do not appear to suffer. I have heard a barrister urge the argument to exonerate the most heartless and cruel neglect. “Lear. Thou thinkst’t is much, that this contentious storm Invades us to the skin : so 'tis to thee;

But where the greater malady is fix’d, The lesser is scarce felt.

Thou'dst shun a bear;

But if thy flight lay toward the roaring sea, Thoud'st meet the bear i' the mouth.

When the mind 's free

The body's delicate : the tempest in my mind Doth from my senses take all feeling else, Save what beats there.—Filial ingratitude :





O, that way madness lies; let me shun that ; No more of that”—

This is the last speech of which there have been so many, expressing the consciousness of coming madness, which now yields to the actual presence of intellectual aberration ; the ex cited emotions of unsound mind giving place to the delusions