A Dish of Orts : Chiefly Papers on the Imagination and on Shakespeare, George MacDonald [websites to read books for free .TXT] 📗

book-shop:-Malvolio, having built his castle in the air, proceeds to inhabit it. Describing his own behaviour in a supposed case, he says (act ii. scene 5): "I frown the while; and perchance, wind up my watch, or play with my some rich jewel"-A dash ought to come after my . Malvolio was about to say chain ; but remembering that his chain was the badge of his office of steward, and therefore of his servitude, he alters the word to " some rich jewel " uttered with pretended carelessness.

In "Hamlet," act iii. scene 1, did not Shakspere intend the passionate soliloquy of Ophelia-a soliloquy which no maiden knowing that she was overheard would have uttered,-coupled with the words of her father:

"How now, Ophelia?
You need not tell us what lord Hamlet said,
We heard it all;"-

to indicate that, weak as Ophelia was, she was not false enough to be accomplice in any plot for betraying Hamlet to her father and the King? They had remained behind the arras, and had not gone out as she must have supposed.

Next, let me request my reader to refer once more to the poem; and having considered the physiognomy of Ajax and Ulysses, as described in the fifth stanza, to turn then to the play of "Troilus and Cressida," and there contemplate that description as metamorphosed into the higher form of revelation in speech. Then, if he will associate the general principles in that stanza with the third, especially the last two lines, I will apply this to the character of Lady Macbeth.

Of course, Shakspere does not mean that one regarding that portion of the picture alone, could see the eyes looking sad; but that the sweet observance of the whole so roused the imagination that it supplied what distance had concealed, keeping the far-off likewise in sweet observance with the whole: the rest pointed that way.-In a manner something like this are we conducted to a right understanding of the character of Lady Macbeth. First put together these her utterances:

"You do unbend your noble strength, to think
So brainsickly of things."

"Get some water,
And wash this filthy witness from your hands."

"The sleeping and the dead
Are but as pictures."

"A little water clears us of this deed."

"When all's done,
You look but on a stool."

"You lack the season of all natures, sleep."-

Had these passages stood in the play unmodified by others, we might have judged from them that Shakspere intended to represent Lady Macbeth as an utter materialist, believing in nothing beyond the immediate communications of the senses. But when we find them associated with such passages as these-

"Memory, the warder of the brain,
Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason
A limbeck only;"

"Had he not resembled
My father as he slept, I had done't;

"These deeds must not be thought
After these ways; so, it will make us mad;"-

then we find that our former theory will not do, for here are deeper and broader foundations to build upon. We discover that Lady Macbeth was an unbeliever morally , and so found it necessary to keep down all imagination, which is the upheaving of that inward world whose very being she would have annihilated. Yet out of this world arose at last the phantom of her slain self, and possessing her sleeping frame, sent it out to wander in the night, and rub its distressed and blood-stained hands in vain. For, as in this same "Rape of Lucrece,"

"the soul's fair temple is defaced;
To whose weak ruins muster troops of cares,
To ask the spotted princess how she fares."

But when so many lines of delineation meet, and run into, and correct one another, assuming such a natural and vital form, that there is no
making of a point anywhere; and the woman is shown after no theory, but according to the natural laws of human declension, we feel that the only way to account for the perfection of the representation is to say that, given a shadow, Shakspere had the power to place himself so, that that shadow became his own-was the correct representation as shadow, of his form coming between it and the sunlight. And this is the highest dramatic gift that a man can possess. But we feel at the same time, that this is, in the main, not so much art as inspiration. There would be, in all probability, a great mingling of conscious art with the inspiration; but the lines of the former being lost in the general glow of the latter, we may be left where we were as to any certainty about the artistic consciousness of Shakspere. I will now therefore attempt to give a few plainer instances of such sweet observance in his own work as he would have admired in a painting.

First, then, I would request my reader to think how comparatively seldom Shakspere uses poetry in his plays. The whole play is a poem in the highest sense; but truth forbids him to make it the rule for his characters to speak poetically. Their speech is poetic in relation to the whole and the end, not in relation to the speaker, or in the immediate utterance. And even although their speech is immediately poetic, in this sense, that every character is idealized; yet it is idealized after its kind ; and poetry certainly would not be the ideal speech of most of the characters. This granted, let us look at the exceptions: we shall find that such passages not only glow with poetic loveliness and fervour, but are very jewels of sweet observance , whose setting allows them their force as lawful, and their prominence as natural. I will mention a few of such.

In "Julius Caesar," act i. scene 3, we are inclined to think the way
Casca speaks, quite inconsistent with the "sour fashion" which
Cassius very justly attributes to him; till we remember that he is speaking in the midst of an almost supernatural thunder-storm: the hidden electricity of the man's nature comes out in poetic forms and words, in response to the wild outburst of the overcharged heavens and earth.

Shakspere invariably makes the dying speak poetically, and generally prophetically, recognizing the identity of the poetic and prophetic moods, in their highest development, and the justice that gives them the same name. Even Sir John , poor ruined gentleman, babbles of green fields . Every one knows that the passage is disputed: I believe that if this be not the restoration of the original reading, Shakspere himself would justify it, and wish that he had so written it.

Romeo and Juliet talk poetry as a matter of course.

In "King John," act v. scenes 4 and 5, see how differently the dying
Melun and the living and victorious Lewis regard the same sunset:

Melun .

. . . . . this night, whose black contagious breath
Already smokes about the burning crest
Of the old, feeble, and day-wearied sun.

Lewis .

The sun in heaven, methought, was loath to set;
But stayed, and made the western welkin blush,
When the English measured backward their own ground.

The exquisite duet between Lorenzo and Jessica , in the opening of the fifth act of "The Merchant of Venice," finds for its subject the circumstances that produce the mood-the lovely night and the crescent moon-which first make them talk poetry, then call for music, and next speculate upon its nature.

Let us turn now to some instances of sweet observance in other kinds.

There is observance, more true than sweet, in the character of
Jacques , in "As You Like It:" the fault-finder in age was the fault-doer in youth and manhood. Jacques patronizing the fool, is one of the rarest shows of self-ignorance.

In the same play, when Rosalind hears that Orlando is in the wood, she cries out, "Alas the day! what shall I do with my doublet and hose?" And when Orlando asks her, "Where dwell you, pretty youth?" she answers, tripping in her rôle, "Here in the skirts of the forest, like fringe upon a petticoat."

In the second part of "King Henry IV.," act iv. scene 3, Falstaff says of Prince John : "Good faith, this same young sober-blooded boy doth not love me; nor a man cannot make him laugh;-but that's no marvel: he drinks no wine." This is the Prince John who betrays the insurgents afterwards by the falsest of quibbles, and gains his revenge through their good faith.

In "King Henry IV," act i. scene 2, Poins does not say Falstaff is a coward like the other two; but only-"If he fight longer than he sees reason, I'll forswear arms." Associate this with Falstaff's soliloquy about honour in the same play, act v. scene 1, and the true character of his courage or cowardice-for it may bear either name-comes out.

Is there not conscious art in representing the hospitable face of the castle of Macbeth , bearing on it a homely welcome in the multitude of the nests of the temple-haunting martlet (Psalm lxxxiv. 3), just as
Lady Macbeth , the fiend-soul of the house, steps from the door, like the speech of the building, with her falsely smiled welcome? Is there not observance in it?

But the production of such instances might be endless, as the work of Shakspere is infinite. I confine myself to two more, taken from "The Merchant of Venice."

Shakspere requires a character capable of the magnificent devotion of friendship which the old story attributes to Antonio . He therefore introduces us to a man sober even to sadness, thoughtful even to melancholy. The first words of the play unveil this characteristic. He holds "the world but as the world,"-

"A stage where every man must play a part,
And mine a sad one."

The cause of this sadness we are left to conjecture. Antonio himself professes not to know. But such a disposition, even if