Chapter 68

“For the life to come, I sleep out the thought of it.”

Fine as this is, and delicately characteristic of one who had lived and been reared in the best society, and had been precipitated from it by dice and drabbing; yet still it strikes against my feelings as a note out of tune, and as not coalescing with that pastoral tint which gives such a charm to this act. It is too Macbeth-like in the “snapper up of unconsidered trifles.”

_Ib._ sc. 4. Perdita’s speech:—

“From Dis’s waggon! daffodils.”

An epithet is wanted here, not merely or chiefly for the metre, but for the balance, for the æsthetic logic. Perhaps “golden” was the word which would set off the “violets dim.”

_Ib._—

... “Pale primroses That die unmarried.”

Milton’s—

“And the rathe primrose that forsaken dies.”

_Ib._ Perdita’s speech:—

“Even here undone: I was not much afraid; for once or twice I was about to speak, and tell him plainly, The self-same sun, that shines upon his court, Hides not his visage from our cottage, but Looks on alike. Will’t please you, Sir, be gone! (_To Florizel._) I told you, what would come of this. Beseech you, Of your own state take care: this dream of mine, Being now awake, I’ll queen it no inch farther, But milk my ewes, and weep.”

O how more than exquisite is this whole speech! And that profound nature of noble pride and grief venting themselves in a momentary peevishness of resentment toward Florizel:—

... “Will’t please you, Sir, be gone!”

_Ib._ Speech of Autolycus:—

“Let me have no lying; it becomes none but tradesmen, and they often give us soldiers the lie; but we pay them for it with stamped coin, not stabbing steel;—therefore they do not _give_ us the lie.”

As we _pay_ them, they, therefore, do not _give_ it us.

“Othello.”