Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/236

 Bertram, in "All's Well that Ends Well," is under the influence of Parolles, "a snipt-taffata fellow," who goes buzzing around like a "red-tailed humble-bee" in a vile yellow suit all stuck over with bows and trimmings. Bertram has been often advised to cast him off: "There can be no kernel in this light nut; the soul of this man is his clothes; trust him not in matter of heavy consequence." Bertram is a raw boy for discernment, and insists that Parolles is very valiant, and has a good knowledge of the world. His friends are obliged to lay a plot, and invite him to be witness to Parolles's cowardice and knavery: not till then will he confess to the crudeness of his judgment.

But Helena, though well disposed to like a man who is Bertram's companion, has read him thoroughly, and, moreover, has the instinct to perceive that the man's knavery is so inbred that it suits him better than honesty. Her observation is full of subtlety:—

"I know him a notorious liar, Think him a great way fool, solely a coward; Yet these fix'd evils sit so fit in him, That they take place, when virtue's steely bones Look bleak in the cold wind."

The "evils" have a congenial place in such a temperament: a bleaker one would discourage the finest virtues. His nature fortunately cannot be reformed, since reform would turn a most satisfactory and harmonious miscreant into a scrubby gentleman. "And that's the humor of it," as Nym would say. Shakspeare puts this rare breadth of judgment into the mouth of a woman.