Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/343

 *ness of it,—the impalpable Ophelia. To detain and handle is impossible, not because, like some rare sphinx-moth, the downy wings flutter into hiding; for she is motionless as a stain of color, restful as a summer afternoon when all the noises sleep: she is a sentiment that broods without a stir upon the lofty Hamlet; she gives no sound to challenge your attention, and is unable to goad her exquisite reserve into any marked behavior. But this shyness is broad enough to cover Hamlet's variety all over, and does not let one of his features straggle beyond its subduing purple. She is the tone of the whole wide landscape that stretches between your soul and his. What need has she to multiply words, to intensify her shape upon the background of the action? Small need has she to borrow the saucy wit of Beatrice, to make up her lips with the pertness of Rosalind, or compress them with the firmness of Helena. They just suit the touch of Hamlet's lips when his unbend from gathering the speech of solemn thoughts. She offers them, and his cloud empties of its density. She draws off the accumulated sparks of reason, makes him safe and domestic, steals into him with content that even he cannot measure, up to the time when a father's death untuned his prophetic soul. She will learn to prattle about flowers, but, alas! not steeped like Perdita, in glad midsummer; not to beguile her lord, but to deck the bride-bed of her fate. She wears her rue "with a difference." But, in the mean time, she may neglect Lord Hamlet's books, and keep her mind guiltless of entertaining views. She would have no fancy for going to