Smith College - Smith College Yearbook (Northampton, MA)

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A stone when it is dropped from a high building will increase its velocity as it comes through space until it reaches the ground. So with each good deed the soul draws nearer to its goal, the divine. It seems strange to think that in a tragedy, one may look for humor. The poor fool ' s wit seems more pathetic there than droll. We doubt if Shakspere ever meant us to laugh at it. Yet humor there is. Dowden, in his treatise on Hamlet, brings out the thought that even here the comic element is present, is present, but not obtruded. Laertes, with all the self-conceited importance of an elder brother takes it upon himself to give to Ophelia a moral lecture. She in turn would give to him some sisterly advice, but he finds that his time is limited. He must away. Too late. Polonius has entered the stage just as the boy would leave it and Leonatus must listen to a long drawn-out speech upon the folly of vice and the wisdom of virtue. There is nothing more comical than the retribution of self-conceit. I have already spoken of Shakspere ' s belief that retribution is an active force which works in the soul and mind of man. This is the phase of the law on which he places the most emphasis, but he by no means abandons the other phase, retribution as shown in material punishment. To the average small child, stories from Shakspere might be as truly a mine of pleasure as are the tales of Grimm. There are punish- ments and horrors, suicides and murders, duels and wars enough to satisfy even the most bloodthirsty ; witches, ghosts, and spirits enough for the most imaginative. The moralist may come to Shakspere for his examples of the weakness of sin. Sin cannot exist unrestrained. It must be punished. There is no cover thick enough to conceal it; no labyrinth so intricate that it cannot be discovered. There are voices in the 18

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hour of sorrow and misery was not alone. Loyal and true in the times of prosperity. Kent only increased his fidelity in the days of disaster. He was of such a pure, loyal nature that he must love where love was most needed, must serve when all hope of glory and riches to be gained had vanished. Knocked about, buffeted by the enemies of the King, he gained what was better than pearls, more precious than rubies, the name of true friend. Imogen with her unbroken faith in her faithless Leonatus is in herself a poem. Edgar guiding his blind father, a masterpiece of the richness of human pity. God lives not alone in the heavens, he has scattered his divinity over the whole earth. The retribution of love is love. Shakspere was a great optimist ; he believed in the power of love to grow, in the power of virtue to generate virtue. It is the old example from nature. A lily will grow more beautiful in the bright sunshine and under the blue sky ; so man ' s soul will grow with each good deed. Thrust the lily into the dark and it will shrivel away; take man away from good and his soul will die. Moreover, virtue cannot be lost. Like matter it cannot be destroyed. Strive to smother it and it will burst into song. Strive to conceal it and it will break down its bulwarks. Virtue must be ultimately recognized. That is its final right. An Othello may question the faith of a Desdemona but at the end of his life he will be moved to say : Speak of me as one Whose hand, Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away Richer than all his tribe. 17

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air that proclaim the evil deed ; ghosts, who in the dead of night, wander and announce the sin. A Lady Macbeth may be strong enough to keep an awful secret all the day; by the strong fetters of an iron will she may keep it bound, but in the night, when sleep has loosed those fetters, it will escape. Dreams arise and images terrible. A son follows his mother to her chamber and says: Come, come, and sit you down ; you shall not budge ; You go not, till I set you up a glass Where you may see the inmost part of you. A Iachimo cannot endure the thrusts of an evil conscience. I am glad to be constrain ' d to utter that Which torments me to conceal. My heavy conscience sinks my knee As then you force did. Take that life ; beseech you Which I so often owe. An Artemidorus stands ready to say Caesar, beware of Brutus; take heed of Cassius, come not near Casca; have an eye to Cinna, trust not Trebonius. There is but one mind in all these men, and it is bent against Caesar. Sin must be discovered and after the discovery it is only a step farther to the punishment. The inevitable step. It is wonderful to note with what ingenuity Shakspere disposed of his villains, so natural do their untimely deaths seem. He never had to search for an excuse to kill off .this or that character, the excuse seemed to come of its own accord. Living 19