Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/290

 *ous; as when Miranda puts her heart into Ferdinand's hand, so sweetly unconscious of all that the action involves. She only knows that she has "no ambition to see a goodlier man," no arts to use to win him, no starting to overtake the passion with a pack of doubts.

"Hence, bashful cunning, And prompt me, plain and holy innocence! I am your wife, if you will marry me."

The only game she plays with him is chess, but she does better than stale-mate him.

Beatrice, for all her cleverness, shows that she loves Benedick in the first words she utters in the play. For she asks if he has returned from the wars, and gives him a fencing-term for a nickname, to pretend a profound unconcern; then disparages him in a most lively way, and asks whom he has now for a companion, seeming to allude to men, but expecting to know by the answer if his affections have become involved with any woman. And when he fences her wit with his bachelor banter, it piques her secret admiration. She has no other subtlety beyond her wit: she uses it to misprize the wedded state, and to mock indiscriminately at men,—a very common and transparent stratagem of a heart that is deeply engaged; and, beneath all the gay and flippant manner, she feels hurt because she thinks that Benedick is really cool and does not feign.

There is nothing but the mask of night upon Juliet's face to hide, the blush which her lips acknowledge. "Farewell compliment. Dost thou love me?" The bud of love becomes a beauteous flower in its first