Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/211

 they render more sombre the expectation of what must finally come down upon our heads. The recollection of Cordelia gives the King a lucid interval: it breaks like a breadth of heaven into his brain, and into ours through that little sentence, "I did her wrong."

"Canst tell how an oyster makes his shell?" "No." "Nor I neither; but I can tell why a snail has a house." "Why?" "Why, to put his head in; not to give it away to his daughters, and leave his horns without a case." Lear listens absently to the quaint chatter; for he detects the threat which has been approaching from the distance, and is now quite near.

"Oh, let me not be mad, not mad, sweet Heaven! Keep me in temper: I would not be mad."

After helping Kent and Gloster bear off the King just before old Gloster's eyes are plucked from his head, the Fool disappears from the tragedy, as if all light were to be quenched with such an act, and all moods but terror to be stamped with those jellies under Cornwall's feet.

"Make no noise, make no noise; draw the curtains!"