can fancy how she wrings her hands in her distress, and tries to crush down the pain she feels, as she answers :—

Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave

My heart into my mouth.

Then we all know how the headstrong king bursts into furious passion, and banishes his favourite daughter for ever from his sight.

The Duke of Kent, the most faithful servant of Lear, does all he can to moderate his rage; but the king only answers that it is his very love that has turned to hate :

Peace, Kent!

Come not between the dragon and his wrath.

I loved her most, and thought to set my rest

On her kind nursery.

Kent still bravely expostulates with the king, entreating him as one

Whom I have ever honour'd as my king,
Loved as my father, as my master follow'd,

As my great patron thought on in my prayers.

When he is threatened with vengeance, with splendid courage he answers :—

Be Kent unmannerly,

When Lear is mad. What wilt thou do, old man?
Think'st thou that duty shall have dread to speak,

When power to flattery bows? To plainness honour's
bound,

When majesty stoops to folly. Reverse thy doom;
And, in thy best consideration, check

This hideous rashness: answer my life my judgment,
Thy youngest daughter does not love thee least:
Nor are those empty-hearted whose low sound
Reverbs no hollowness.

This plain speaking incenses Lear to the utmost, and he pronounces exile on the duke, with sentence of death if he is found in the kingdom six days hence; and Kent leaves the court with this blessing on Cordelia :—

The gods to their dear shelter take thee, maid,
That justly think'st, and hast most rightly said!

When he hears of Cordelia's banishment, the King of France demands to know of what dreadful crime she can be guilty, and the maiden herself makes the appeal to her father to vindicate her character :

I yet beseech your majesty,

If for I want that glib and oily art,

To speak and purpose not; since what I well intend,
I'll do't before I speak,—that you make known

It is no vicious blot, murder, or foulness,

No unchaste action, or dishonour'd step,

That hath deprived me of your grace and favour;
But even for want of that for which I am richer,
A still-soliciting eye, and such a tongue
As I am glad I have not, though not to have it
Hath lost me in your liking.

This entreaty deepens the love and admiration of the King of France; he can only discover in her conduct

a tardiness in nature

Which often leaves the history unspoke

That it intends to do.

In words that touch the vital truth of the whole matter he declares that

love's not love

When it is mingled with regards that stand
Aloof from the entire point;

and he thinks himself rich as he makes so noble a lady his wife, even though she comes to him poor, forsaken and despised.

In spite of her vindication from the lips of Kent and France, some critics think Cordelia was to blame in this abrupt reply to her father's demand. But, I think, Shakspere wants to make us know that there are some things which even a father has no right to compel things which cannot be forced, or bribed, or bought. When we listen in company to conventional talk about sacred things, in the midst of vulgar cant and wordy pietism, we are compelled to close our lips in silence; and we feel it better to be thought 'infidels' than desecrate the sanctities of religion by empty phrases of which the heart knows nothing. Sometimes, when you will persist to bother a sincere child as to how much he loves you, you almost admire the impatient evasion by which he protects himself, and ends your tiresome questions, as he cries, 'I don't love you a bit!' If that is a lie, you are far more to blame than the child.* A true character will not be compelled, but yields at once to the tender invitation, 'My son, give me thy heart.' How profoundly are we taught the inviolability of the soul in that wonderful picture of the Divine Christ standing at the door and waiting for admission. 'Behold,' He says, 'I stand at the door and knock.' Surely the Lord of souls has power and right to enter every door and take possession of every heart. And yet He regards the human will as too sacred to be compelled by force from without, and waits in unwearied patience until the barrier is removed from within. In this play we have a despotic parent trying to take his child's heart by storm. And if Cordelia's conduct seems undutiful, her tyrannical father must bear

* Compare Wordsworth's poem called Anecdote for Fathers.

the blame. There are times when we have to guard ourselves from the unwarranted pressure of outward force upon the sanctuary of the soul. We have no right to encroach upon another's personality, or compel the lifting of the veil which has been drawn to shut out curious, prying eyes.

A modern English poet truly says:—

Not to unveil before the gaze

Of an imperfect sympathy,

In aught we are, is the sweet praise
And the main sum of modesty.

Cordelia would have been false to her holiest nature, false to her deep love, if she had allowed her voice to join in a chorus of blatant lies, if she had offered her affection in exchange for the royal bribe. In Cordelia there was a beautiful remoteness, a sacred depth of silent strength. By every action of her life her father might learn something of the love she felt. But if he wanted words, she had none to give; if he offered to bribe her affection, then the windows of the soul were curtained, and the door was shut to guard the sanctities of love.

Was this treatment of her father a fault in Cordelia ? Then, as I compare her with her sisters, I love her for her fault! Without that 'fault' her father would never have discovered her radiant sincerity of mind, her matchless strength of love, her power of glorious self-sacrifice. Ah! but (some critic objects) how differently the course of this story might have been, if Cordelia had only been more compliant; how much suffering she might have saved by humouring her father. But you can purchase immunity from suffering at too dear a rate. Only one tiny pinch of incense on Cæsar's altar, and the Christian martyr would have been saved a frightful death, and restored to her

pleading friends, who could not understand 'obstinacy' in so small a matter. One little lie, and Jeanie Deans would at once have secured her sister's acquittal, instead of bringing reproaches on herself, and having to undertake that dreadful journey to force a pardon from the king.

There are some things which must not be done whatever the risk, and ought to be resisted at any cost, even unto death; there is a chastity of mind and heart supremely precious, and not for any bribe must the soul prostitute its integrity. Rather than that Cordelia should betray her heart to tyrannical selfishness, and sell her love for convenience and commodity, it was better to risk all consequences,―better to die a martyr in the arms of her broken-hearted father, than live in an atmosphere of hypocrisy, yielding up, bit by bit, the sanctities of her womanhood to hollow conventionalities and base compliances. Life has its pangs, death has its terrors, but the wors catastrophe is the defilement and gradual disruption of moral character. 'The light of the body is the eye; if, therefore, thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light; but if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If, therefore, the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness.' Insincerity of word, unfaithfulness of heart, selfishness of soul,-these are the evils against which we must guard ourselves, lest the altarlight of conscience die away; and no fear of any painful consequences must ever lead to a compromise in these supreme issues of spiritual life. Fear not those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do; but rather fear that Dread Power which visits every sin with its inevitable consequences in the soul.' I shall never forget how deeply I was moved the first time I read in the Apologia pro vitâ suâ those words of Cardinal Newman: It is better for the sun and moon to drop from heaven,