Part 8

_Othello._ Oh devil, devil! If that the earth could teem with woman’s tears, Each drop she falls, would prove a crocodile. Out of my sight.

_Desdemona._ I will not stay t’offend you. [_going._

_Lodovico._ Truly, an obedient lady: I do beseech your Lordship, call her back.

_Oth._ Mistress----

_Des._ My Lord.

_Oth._ What would you with her, Sir?

_Lod._ Who, I, my Lord?

_Oth._ Ay; you did wish that I would make her turn: Sir, she can turn and turn, and yet go on; And turn again. And she can weep, Sir, weep; And she’s obedient: as you say, obedient; Very obedient--proceed you in your tears--Concerning this, Sir,--oh well-painted passion!--I am commanded home--get you away, I’ll send for you anon--Sir, I obey the mandate, And will return to Venice.---- Hence, avaunt! [_Exit Desdemona._

_Othello, act 4. sc. 6._

_Æmilia._ Oh! my good Lord, I would speak a word with you.

_Othello._ Yes, ’tis Æmilia--by and by--she’s dead. ’Tis like, she comes to speak of Cassio’s death; The noise was high.--Ha, no more moving? Still as the grave. Shall she come in? were’t good? I think she stirs again--No--what’s the best? If she come in, she’ll, sure, speak to my wife; My wife! my wife! What wife? I have no wife. Oh insupportable! oh heavy hour!

_Othello, act 5. sc. 7._

A fourth observation is, that nature, which gave us passions, and made them extremely beneficial when moderate, intended undoubtedly that they should be subjected to the government of reason and conscience[52]. It is therefore against the order of nature, that passion in any case should take the lead in contradiction to reason and conscience. Such a state of mind is a sort of anarchy, which every one is ashamed of, and endeavours to hide or dissemble. Even love, however laudable, is attended with a conscious shame when it becomes immoderate: it is covered from the world, and disclosed only to the beloved object:

Et que l’amour souvent de remors combattu Paroisse une foiblesse, et non une vertu. _Boileau, L’art poet. chant. 3. l. 101._

O, they love least that let men know their love. _Two Gentlemen of Verona, act 1. sc. 3._

Hence a capital rule in the representation of strong passions, that their genuine sentiments ought to be hid or dissembled as much as possible. And this holds in an especial manner with respect to criminal passions. One never counsels the commission of a crime in plain terms. Guilt must not appear in its native colours, even in thought: the proposal must be made by hints, and by representing the action in some favourable light. Of the propriety of sentiment upon such an occasion, Shakespear, in the _Tempest_, has given us a beautiful example. The subject is a proposal made by the usurping Duke of Milan to Sebastian, to murder his brother the King of Naples.

_Antonio._---- What might Worthy Sebastian--O, what might--no more. And yet, methinks, I see it in thy face, What thou should’st be: th’occasion speaks thee, and My strong imagination sees a crown Dropping upon thy head. _Act 2. sc. 1._

There cannot be a finer picture of this sort, than that of King John soliciting Hubert to murder the young Prince Arthur.

_K. John._ Come hither, Hubert. O my gentle Hubert, We owe thee much; within this wall of flesh There is a soul counts thee her creditor, And with advantage means to pay thy love. And, my good friend, thy voluntary oath Lives in this bosom, dearly cherished. Give me thy hand, I had a thing to say---- But I will fit it with some better time. By Heaven, Hubert, I’m almost asham’d To say what good respect I have of thee.

_Hubert._ I am much bounden to your Majesty.

_K. John._ Good friend, thou hast no cause to say so yet---- But thou shalt have--and creep time ne’er so slow, Yet it shall come for me to do thee good. I had a thing to say--but, let it go: The sun is in the heav’n, and the proud day, Attended with the pleasures of the world, Is all too wanton, and too full of gawds, To give me audience. If the midnight-bell Did with his iron tongue and brazen mouth Sound one into the drowsy race of night; If this same were a church-yard where we stand, And thou possessed with a thousand wrongs; Or if that surly spirit Melancholy Had bak’d thy blood and made it heavy-thick, Which else runs tickling up and down the veins, Making that idiot Laughter keep men’s eyes, And strain their cheeks to idle merriment, (A passion hateful to my purposes); Or if that thou could’st see me without eyes, Hear me without thine ears, and make reply Without a tongue, using conceit alone, Without eyes, ears, and harmful sounds of words; Then, in despight of broad-ey’d watchful day, I would into thy bosom pour my thoughts. But ah, I will not--Yet I love thee well; And, by my troth, I think thou lov’st me well.

_Hubert._ So well, that what you bid me undertake, Though that my death were adjunct to my act, By Heav’n, I’d do’t.

_K. John._ Do not I know, thou would’st? Good Hubert, Hubert, Hubert, throw thine eye On yon young boy. I’ll tell thee what, my friend; He is a very serpent in my way. And, wheresoe’er this foot of mine doth tread, He lies before me. Dost thou understand me? Thou art his keeper. _King John, act 3. sc. 5._

As things are best illustrated by their contraries, I proceed to collect from classical authors, sentiments that appear faulty. The first class shall consist of sentiments that accord not with the passion; or, in other words, sentiments that the passion represented does not naturally suggest. In the second class, shall be ranged sentiments that may belong to an ordinary passion, but unsuitable to it as tinctured by a singular character. Thoughts that properly are not sentiments, but rather descriptions, make a third. Sentiments that belong to the passion represented, but are faulty as being introduced too early or too late, make a fourth. Vicious sentiments exposed in their native dress, instead of being concealed or disguised, make a fifth. And in the last class, shall be collected sentiments suited to no character or passion, and therefore unnatural.

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The first class contains faulty sentiments of various kinds, which I shall endeavour to distinguish from each other. And first sentiments that are faulty by being above the tone of the passion.

_Othello._---- O my soul’s joy! If after every tempest come such calms, May the winds blow till they have waken’d death: And let the labouring bark climb hills of seas Olympus high, and duck again as low As hell’s from heaven! _Othello, act 2. sc. 6._

This sentiment is too strong to be suggested by so slight a joy as that of meeting after a storm at sea.

_Philaster._ Place me, some god, upon a pyramid Higher than hills of earth, and lend a voice Loud as your thunder to me, that from thence I may discourse to all the under-world The worth that dwells in him. _Philaster of Beaumont and Fletcher, act 4._

Secondly, Sentiments below the tone of the passion. Ptolemy, by putting Pompey to death, having incurred the displeasure of Cæsar, was in the utmost dread of being dethroned. In this agitating situation, Corneille makes him utter a speech full of cool reflection, that is in no degree expressive of the passion.

Ah! si je t’avois crû, je n’aurois pas de maître, Je serois dans le trône où le Ciel m’a fait naître; Mais c’est une imprudence assez commune aux rois, D’ecouter trop d’avis, et se tromper au choix. Le Destin les aveugle au bord du précipice, Ou si quelque lumiere en leur ame se glisse, Cette fausse clarté dont il les eblouit, Le plonge dans une gouffre, et puis s’evanouit. _La mort de Pompée, act 4. sc. 1._

In _Les Freres ennemies_ of Racine, the second act is opened with a love-scene. Hemon talks to his mistress of the torments of absence, of the lustre of her eyes, that he ought to die no where but at her feet, and that one moment of absence was a thousand years. Antigone on her part acts the coquette, and pretends she must be gone to wait on her mother and brother, and cannot stay to listen to his courtship. This is odious French gallantry, below the dignity of the passion of love. It would scarce be excusable in painting modern French manners; and is insufferable where the ancients are brought upon the stage. The manners painted in the _Alexandre_ of the same author are not more just. French gallantry prevails there throughout.

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Third. Sentiments that agree not with the tone of the passion; as where a pleasant sentiment is grafted upon a painful passion, or the contrary. In the following instances the sentiments are too gay for a serious passion.

No happier talk these faded eyes pursue; To read and weep is all they now can do. _Eloisa to Abelard, l. 47._

Again,

Heav’n first taught letters for some wretch’s aid, Some banish’d lover, or some captive maid; They live, they speak, they breathe what love inspires, Warm from the soul, and faithful to its fires; The virgin’s wish without her fears impart, Excuse the blush, and pour out all the heart; Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul, And waft a sigh from Indus to the pole. _Eloisa to Abelard, l. 51._

These thoughts are pretty; they suit Pope extremely, but not Eloisa.

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Satan, enraged by a threatening of the angel Gabriel, answers thus:

Then when I am thy captive talk of chains, Proud limitary cherub; but ere then Far heavier load thyself expect to feel From my prevailing arm, though Heaven’s King Ride on thy wings, and thou with thy compeers, Us’d to the yoke, draw’st his triumphant wheels In progress through the road of heav’n _star-pav’d_. _Paradise Lost, book 4._

The concluding epithet forms a grand and delightful image, which cannot be the genuine offspring of rage.

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Fourth. Sentiments too artificial for a serious passion. I give for the first example a speech of Piercy expiring:

O, Harry, thou hast robb’d me of my growth: I better brook the loss of brittle life, Than those proud titles thou hast won of me; They wound my thoughts, worse than thy sword my flesh. But thought’s the slave of life, and life time’s fool; And time, that takes survey of all the world, Must have a stop. _First part, Henry IV. act 5. sc. 9._

Livy inserts the following passage in a plaintive oration of the Locrenses accusing Pleminius the Roman legate of oppression.

“In hoc legato vestro, nec hominis quicquam est, Patres Conscripti, præter figuram et speciem; neque Romani civis, præter habitum vestitumque, et sonum linguæ Latinæ. Pestis et bellua immanis, quales fretum, quondam, quo ab Sicilia dividimur, ad perniciem navigantium circumsedisse, fabulæ ferunt[53].”

Congreve shows a fine taste in the sentiments of the _Mourning Bride_. But in the following passage the picture is too artful to be suggested by severe grief:

_Almeria._ O no! Time gives increase to my afflictions. The circling hours, that gather all the woes Which are diffus’d through the revolving year, Come heavy-laden with th’ oppressing weight To me; with me, successively, they leave The sighs, the tears, the groans, the restless cares, And all the damps of grief, that did retard their flight, They shake their downy wings, and scatter all The dire collected dews on my poor head; Then fly with joy and swiftness from me. _Act 1. sc. 1._

In the same play, Almeria seeing a dead body, which she took to be Alphonso’s, expresses sentiments strained and artificial, which nature suggests not to any person upon such an occasion:

Had they, or hearts, or eyes, that did this deed? Could eyes endure to guide such cruel hands? Are not my eyes guilty alike with theirs, That thus can gaze, and yet not turn to stone? --I do not weep! The springs of tears are dry’d, And of a sudden I am calm, as if All things were well; and yet my husband’s murder’d! Yes, yes, I know to mourn! I’ll sluice this heart, The source of wo, and let the torrent loose. _Act 5. sc. 11._

_Lady Trueman._ How could you be so cruel to defer giving me that joy which you knew I must receive from your presence? You have robb’d my life of some hours of happiness that ought to have been in it.

_Drummer, act 5._

Pope’s Elegy to the memory of an unfortunate lady, expresses delicately the most tender concern and sorrow for the deplorable fate of a person of worth. A poem of this kind, deeply serious and pathetic, rejects all fiction with disdain. We therefore can give no quarter to the following passage, which is eminently discordant with the subject. It is not the language of the heart, but of the imagination indulging its flights at ease. It would be a still more severe censure, if it should be ascribed to imitation, copying indiscreetly what has been said by others.

What though no weeping loves thy ashes grace, Nor polish’d marble emulate thy face? What though no sacred earth allow thee room, Nor hallow’d dirge be muttered o’er thy tomb? Yet shall thy grave with rising flow’rs be drest, And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast: There shall the morn her earliest tears bestow, There the first roses of the year shall blow; While angels with their silver wings o’ershade The ground, now sacred by thy reliques made.

Fifth. Fanciful or sinical sentiments, sentiments that degenerate into point or conceit, however they may amuse in an idle hour, can never be the offspring of any serious or important passion. In the _Ierusalem_ of Tasso, Tancred, after a single combat, spent with fatigue and loss of blood, falls into a swoon. In this situation, understood to be dead, he is discovered by Erminia, who was in love with him to distraction. A more happy situation cannot be imagined, to raise grief in an instant to its highest pitch; and yet, in venting her sorrow, she descends most abominably to antithesis and conceit, even of the lowest kind.

E in lui versò d’inessicabil vena Lacrime, e voce di sospiri mista. In che misero punto hor qui me mena Fortuna? a che veduta amara e trista? Dopo gran tempo i’ ti ritrovo à pena Tancredi, e ti riveggio, e non son vista, Vista non son da te, benche presente E trovando ti perdo eternamente. _Cant. 19. st. 105._

Armida’s lamentation respecting her lover Rinaldo[54], is in the same vitious taste.

_Queen._ Give me no help in lamentation, I am not barren to bring forth complaints: All springs reduce their currents to mine eyes, That I, being govern’d by the wat’ry moon, May send forth plenteous tears to drown the world. Ah, for my husband, for my dear Lord Edward. _King Richard III. act 2. sc. 2._

_Jane Shore._ Let me be branded for the public scorn, Turn’d forth, and driven to wander like a vagabond, Be friendless and forsaken, seek my bread Upon the barren wild, and desolate waste, _Feed on my sighs, and drink my falling tears_; Ere I consent to teach my lips injustice, Or wrong the orphan who has none to save him. _Jane Shore, act 4._

Give me your drops, ye soft-descending rains, Give me your streams, ye never-ceasing springs, That my sad eyes may still supply my duty, And feed an everlasting flood of sorrow. _Jane Shore, act 5._

Jane Shore utters her last breath in a witty conceit.

Then all is well, and I shall sleep in peace---- ’Tis very dark, and I have lost you now---- Was there not something I would have bequeath’d you? But I have nothing left me to bestow, Nothing but one sad sigh. Oh mercy, Heav’n! [_Dies._ _Act 5._

Gilford to Lady Jane Gray, when both were condemned to die:

Thou stand’st unmov’d; Calm temper sits upon thy beauteous brow; Thy eyes that flow’d so fast for Edward’s loss, Gaze unconcern’d upon the ruin round thee, As if thou hadst resolv’d to brave thy fate, And triumph in the midst of desolation. Ha! see, it swells, the liquid crystal rises, It starts in spight of thee---- but I will catch it, Nor let the earth be wet with dew so rich. _Lady Jane Gray, act 4. near the end._

The concluding sentiment is altogether sinical, unsuitable to the importance of the occasion, and even to the dignity of the passion of love.

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Corneille, in his _Examen of the Cid_[55], answering an objection, that his sentiments are sometimes too much refined for persons in deep distress, observes, that if poets did not indulge sentiments more ingenious or refined than are prompted by passion, their performances would often be low; and extreme grief would never suggest but exclamations merely. This is in plain language to assert, That forced thoughts are more relished than such as are natural, and therefore ought to be preferred.

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The second class is of sentiments that may belong to an ordinary passion, but are not perfectly concordant with it, as tinctured by a singular character. In the last act of that excellent comedy, _The Careless Husband_, Lady Easy, upon Sir Charles’s reformation, is made to express more violent and turbulent sentiments of joy, than are consistent with the mildness of her character.

_Lady Easy._ O the soft treasure! O the dear reward of long-desiring love---- Thus! thus to have you mine, is something more than happiness, ’tis double life, and madness of abounding joy.

If the sentiments of a passion ought to be suited to a peculiar character, it is still more necessary that sentiments devoid of passion be suited to the character. In the 5th act of the _Drummer_, Addison makes his gardener act even below the character of an ignorant credulous rustic: he gives him the behaviour of a gaping idiot.

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The following instances are descriptions rather than sentiments, which compose a third class.

Of this descriptive manner of painting the passions, there is in the _Hippolytus_ of Euripides, act 5. an illustrious instance, _viz._ the speech of Theseus, upon hearing of his son’s dismal exit. In Racine’s tragedy of _Esther_, the Queen hearing of the decree issued against her people, instead of expressing sentiments suitable to the occasion, turns her attention upon herself, and describes with accuracy her own situation.

Juste Ciel? Tout mon sang dans mes veines se glace. _Act 1. sc. 3._

Again,

_Aman._ C’en est fait. Mon orgueil est forcé de plier, L’inexorable Aman est reduit a prier. _Esther, act 3. sc. 5._

_Athalie._ Quel prodige nouveau me trouble et m’embarrasse? La douceur de sa voix, son enfance, sa grace, Font insensiblement à mon inimitié Succéder---- Je serois sensible a la pitié? _Athalie, act 2. sc. 7._

_Titus._ O de ma passion fureur desesperée! _Brutus of Voltaire, act 3. sc. 6._

What other are the foregoing instances than describing the passion another feels?

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An example is given above of remorse and despair expressed by genuine and natural sentiments. In the fourth book of _Paradise Lost_, Satan is made to express his remorse and despair in sentiments, which though beautiful, are not altogether natural. They are rather the sentiments of a spectator, than of a person who actually is tormented with these passions.

The fourth class is of sentiments introduced too early or too late.

Some examples mentioned above belong to this class. Add the following from _Venice preserv’d_, act 5. at the close of the scene betwixt Belvidera and her father Priuli. The account given by Belvidera of the danger she was in, and of her husband’s threatening to murder her, ought naturally to have alarmed her relenting father, and to have made him express the most perturbed sentiments. Instead of which he dissolves into tenderness and love for his daughter, as if he had already delivered her from danger, and as if there were a perfect tranquillity.

Canst thou forgive me all my follies past? I’ll henceforth be indeed a father; never, Never more thus expose, but cherish thee, Dear as the vital warmth that feeds my life, Dear as these eyes that weep in fondness o’er thee: Peace to thy heart.

Immoral sentiments exposed in their native colours, instead of being concealed or disguised, compose the fifth class.

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The Lady Macbeth projecting the death of the King, has the following soliloquy:

---- The raven himself’s not hoarse That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan Under my battlements. Come all you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to th’ toe, top-full Of direct cruelty; make thick my blood, Stop up th’ access and passage to remorse That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose. _Macbeth, act 1. sc. 7._

This speech is not natural. Murder under trust was never perpetrated even by the most hardened miscreant without compunction. And that the lady here must have been in horrible agitation appears, from her invoking the infernal spirits to fill her with cruelty, and to stop up all avenues to remorse. But in this state of mind, it is a never-failing device of self-deceit, to draw the thickest veil over the wicked action, and to extenuate it by all circumstances that imagination can suggest. And if the crime cannot bear disguise, the next attempt is, to thrust it out of mind altogether, and to rush on to action without thought. This last was the husband’s method.

Strange things I have in head, that will to hand; Which must be acted, ere they must be scann’d. _Act 3. sc. 5._

The lady follows neither of these courses, but in a deliberate manner endeavours to fortify her heart in the commission of an execrable crime, without even attempting a disguise. This I think is not natural. I hope there is no such wretch to be found, as is here represented. In the _Pompey_ of Corneille[56], Photine counsels a wicked action in the plainest terms without disguise.