Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/199

 his tongue's end, and he is always humming snatches of them. For the Duke he has cypress sentimentalism, urges death to come away, and forbids a flower sweet to be strown on the black coffin of the Duke's luxurious woe. We can imagine what a face Feste pulled over the minor key which so tickled the Duke, whose love was after all nothing but the spooning of a professor of rhetoric. He can take off his sighing disguise as quickly as Viola can transfer herself into woman's weeds. Olivia is well aware of this, and having just lost her brother is in no mood for a flirtation. She knows he is a noble and gracious person, but she has read the first chapter of his heart, and "it is heresy." The Clown, who is as usual Shakspeare's keenest and most amused observer, knows this well and puts it into the neatest language: "The tailor make thy doublet of changeable taffeta, for thy mind is a very opal! I would have men of such constancy put to sea, that their business might be everything and their intent everywhere; for that's it that always makes a good voyage of nothing." And this turns out true enough; for the Duke with all sail set after Olivia, and a spanking breeze on his quarter, tacks nimbly in the teeth of it the moment Olivia is married by mistake, and Cesario becomes a woman. The only serious sentiment in the play is the one so tenderly concealed in the disguise of Viola.

In Act iii. 7, Viola enters, meeting Feste, who is playing the pipe and tabor. Her simplest remark he makes the pivot of a jest, and is never tired of tossing words. He plays with them as a juggler with balls;