A. Strange, that when from it one can look abroad into the ocean, its barrenness should be so depressing. But man seems to need some shelter, both from wind and rain. L. Could he not have found this in the love of Ophelia ? A. Probably not, since that love had so little power to disenchant the gloom of this period. She was to him a flower to wear in his bosom, a child to play the lute at his feet. We see the charm of her innocence, her soft credulity, as she answers her brother, "No more, but so?" The exquisite grace of her whole being in the two lines "And I of ladies most deject and wretched That sucked the honey of his music vows.” She cannot be made to misunderstand him; his rude wildness crushes, but cannot deceive her heart. She has no answer to his outbreaks but "O help him, you sweet Heavens!" But, lovely as she was, and loved by him, this love could have been only the ornament, not, in any wise, the food of his life. The moment he is left alone, his thoughts revert to universal topics; it was the constitution of his mind, no personal relation could have availed it, except in the way of suggestion. He could not have been absorbed in the present moment. Still it would have been "Heaven and earth! Must I remember?" L. Have you been reading the play of late? A. Yes; hearing Macready, one or two points struck me that have not before, and I was inclined to try for my thousandth harvest from a new study of it. Macready gave its just emphasis to the cliinax This religion from the very first harmonizes all these thrilling notes, and the sweet bells, even when most jangled out of tune, suggest all their silenced melody. From Hamlet I turned to Timon and Lear; the transition was natural yet surprising, from the indifference and sadness of the heaven-craving soul to the misanthropy of the disappointed affections and wounded trust. Hamlet would well have understood them both, yet what a firmament of spheres lies between his pangs of despised love," and the anguish of Lear. baseness of Apemantus's misanthropy, baseness of a soul that never knew how to trust, to make it dignified in our eyes. Timon, estranged from men, could only die; yet the least shade of wrong in this heaven-ruled world would have occasioned Hamlet a deep. er pain than Timon was capable of divining. Yet Hamlet could not for a moment have been so deceived as to fancy man worth. less, because many men were; he knew himself too well, to feel the surprise of Timon when his steward proved true. "Let me behold Thy face. Surely this man was born of woman.Forgive my general and exceptless rashness, You perpetual-sober gods! I do proclaim One honest man." He does not deserve a friend that could draw higher inferences from his story than the steward does. "Foor honest lord, brought low by his own heart, For bounty that makes gods, doth still mar men.” Timon tastes the dregs of the cup. He persuades himself that he does not believe even in himself. "His semblable, even himself, Timon disdains." "Who dares, who dares In purity of manhood to stand up And say this man's a flallerer, if one be So are they all." L. You seem to have fixed your mind, of late, on the subject of misanthropy ! A. I own that my thoughts have turned of late on that low form which despair assumes sometimes even with the well dis posed. Yet see how inexcusable would it be in any of these be. ings. Hamlet is no misanthrope, but he has those excelling gifts, least likely to find due response from those around him. Yet he is felt, almost in his due sense, by two or three. Lear has not only one faithful daughter, whom he knew not how to value, but a friend beside. Timon is prized by the only persons to whom he was good, purely from kindliness of nature, rather than the joy he expected from their gratitude and sympathy, his servants. Tragedy is always a mistake, and the loneliness of the deepest' thinker, the widest lover, ceases to be pathetic to us, so soon as the sun is high enough above the mountains. Were I, despite the bright points so numerous in their history and the admonitions of my own conscience, inclined to despise my fellow men, I should have found abundant argument against it during this late study of Hamlet. In the streets, saloons, and lecture rooms, we continually hear comments so stupid, insolent, and shallow on great and beautiful works, that we are tempted to think that there is no Public for anything that is good; that a work of genius can appeal only to the fewest minds in any one age, and that the reputation now awarded to those of former times is never felt, but only traditional. Of Shakspeare, so vaunted a name, little wise or worthy has been written, perhaps nothing so adequate as Coleridge's comparison of him to the Pine-apple; yet on reading Hamlet, his greatest work, we find there is not a pregnant sentence, scarce a word that men have not appreciated, have not used in myriad ways. Had we never read the play, we should find the whole of it from quotation and illustration familiar to us as air. That exquisite phraseology, so heavy with meaning, wrought out with such admirable minuteness, has become a part of literary diction, the stock of the literary bank; and what set criticism can tell like this fact how great was the work, and that men were worthy it should be addressed to them? L. The moon looks in to tell her assent. See, she has just got above that chimney. Just as this happy certainty has with you risen above the disgusts of the day. A. She looks surprised as well as complacent. L. She looks surprised to find me still here. I must say good night. My friend, good night. A. Good night, and farewell. L. You look as if it were for some time. 4. That rests with you. You will generally find me bere, and always I think like-minded, if not of the same mind. An ancient sage had all things deeply tried, "O friends, there are no friends." And to this day Knowing when changeful moons withdraw their light, Then myriad stars, with promise not less puro, New loves, new lives to patient hopes assure, |