Page:The Psychology of Shakespeare.pdf/233

218 In this violent language the spirit of disappointed ambition is paramount: ambition not only for Arthur but for herself, “What becomes of me?” The attack on Salisbury, the innocent messenger, so unworthy of a lady and a princess, can only be excused on the supposition that she is beside herself with fruitless rage, and vents it on any one within reach. It wants but little that she should turn her tongue or her hands even upon Arthur. When, alarmed by her fury, he interposes, “I do beseech you, madam, be content.” She replies with a strange sophistry, which a true mother's heart would never employ, that if he were “grim, ugly, and slan d’rous to his mother's womb,” &c. : “I would not care, I then would be content ; For then I should not love thee; no, nor thou

Become thy great birth, and deserve a crown.” When was true mother's love ever measured by the beauty of her child. When did it not rather increase with the child's imperfections? Sacred miracle of nature, a mother's love hangs not on such casual gifts as form and beauty. The crétin idiot, hideous and half human, claims and receives more than its share.

Even moral deformities

cannot exhaust this unselfish all-enduring fount of love ; as the reprobate son, the outcast of the family, knows full well, feeling that there is a bond holding him to one pure heart which can never loosen. But the love of Constance is alloyed with pride, and ambition, and selfishness. Not simply because Arthur is her son is he dear to her, but also because he is

rightful heir to a crown, and because his beauty flatters her pride : “Of nature's gifts thou may'st with lilies boast, And with the half-blown rose.”

With the true selfishness of intense pride, she attributes the sufferance of all Arthur's injuries to herself. She alone feels and must under-bear the woes of disappointed ambition. She