Page:The Psychology of Shakespeare.pdf/198

Rh highest. Infinitely more than Goëthe he merited the title of the Allsided One.

Let us conclude this somewhat professional digression by expressing the opinion, that Shakespeare's prescription for Gloster's empty and bleeding orbits, “flax and the whites of eggs,” is good domestic surgery. When Lear next appears a prisoner with Cordelia, his mental state has again undergone great change. The weak ness of exhaustion has disappeared, and the delusion and incoherency of the preceding excitement has yielded to the good influences with which this daughter, thrice blessed in her devoted affection, has balmed the wounded soul.

Lear has

returned as nearly as possible to his state of mind before the storm, and the shock of physical suffering and exposure. Medical treatment and physical comfort, and the blessed influences of affection have soothed his intellectual frenzy.

But the moral disturbance remains, with this notable diffe rence, however, that he now gives vent to passionate love, as he formerly did to passionate anger and hate. There is no measure or reason in his love for Cordelia, as there was none

in his hatred of Goneril. He forgets his age in one as in the other. In prison he will wear out sects of great ones; his enemies shall die and rot before he will part with Cordelia, or weep at sorrow which has lost its sting now she is with him. “Lear. Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia, The gods themselves throw incense. Have I caught thee ? He that parts us shall bring a brand from heaven, And fire us hence, like foxes. Wipe thine eyes; The good years shall devour them, flesh and fell,

Ere they shall make us weep : we'll see them starve first.” This is not mania, but neither is it sound mind.

It is the

emotional excitability often seen in extreme age, as it is de picted in the early scenes of the drama, and it is precisely true to the probabilities of the mind history, that this should be