Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/97

 revenge ourselves upon each other, using not our strength which would be tragic, but our weaknesses. Then impartial justice is obliged to smile to see these counterplots of folly further its great plan. What economy it is to have individuals so contrived that they can baffle, mortify, and school each other without importing the constable! We are self-acting arrangements to relieve the universe from tax and keep its hilarity replenished. In this genial manner "the whirligig of time brings in his revenges." Even if we do not lie in wait for each other, the knowledge of mutual frailties gives our whole life a sub-taste of humor; and that leaves respect upon the tongue.

Sebastian says to the clown: "I prithee vent thy folly somewhere else." Mankind makes the clown's answer: "Vent my folly! He has heard that word of some great man, and now applies it to a fool. Vent my folly! I am afraid this great lubberly world will prove a cockney." No fear of that, my "corrupter of words;" so long as perfect discretion is unknown upon the earth, we are all cosmopolites of infirmity and speak the great language of smiles.

But the play does not let Malvolio drop softly on his feet. There is a faint grudge provoked by the ill-tempered quality of his conceit, and Shakspeare indicates this trait of our nature. The clown, who remembers how the steward used to twit Olivia's contentment at his sallies, and to deprecate it in a lofty way, now mimics his phrases and manner to sting him with a last fluttering dart. Malvolio's pride is already too deeply wounded,