Page:The Tragedy of Julius Caesar (The Warwick Shakespeare).djvu/24

 judgment, because he does not realize that the assumptions from which he reasons are incorrect. He has lived with books, and does not understand the world around him. Cæsar's dictatorship fills him with dismay; but it is not so much the actual absolutism which shocks him as the fear that Cæsar will claim a crown: whereas Cassius cares little about the coronation except so far as he can use the fear of it as a lever to get rid of the monarch. He judges Antony by prepossessions—no man of the world would have assumed that there was nothing to fear in Antony because he was given "to sports, to wildness, and much company"; or have been soothed by his artfully-worded message into cheerful trustfulness. He takes for granted that a Roman mob will placidly accept his assurance of high motives, and be convinced by his nicely-balanced reasoning—without a suspicion that the entire effect might be scattered to the winds by a skillful appeal to popular passion. He sternly rebukes Cassius for wringing "from the hard hands of peasants their vile trash", and would never dream of doing it himself; but it never occurs to him that when he calls on Cassius to aid him with supplies he is practically compelling his colleague to resort to such pressure in order that he may have supplies to give.

It is thoroughly consistent with all this that he is unconsciously open to flattery, and ready to be beguiled by it; for that is part of his own supreme honesty. Never stooping to flattery himself, conscious of his own integrity, he assumes a like honesty in his companions; he counts their praises as genuine expressions of conviction, not artful methods of persuasion; he sees no double meanings, because his own meaning is always so simple and direct. It is a phase not of conceit but of simplicity. This simplicity is in fact the keynote of his character; its combination with his natural tenderness of disposition makes up the whole man who is so lovable. This tenderness comes out alike in the way he yearns over Cæsar himself and over the woes he is bringing upon the Roman world; and in his gentleness to the boy Lucius, his consideration for Claudius and Varro, his