HELENA.
The character of Helena, in "All's Well that Ends Well," furnishes a striking contrast to Ophelia, and tempts the student of Shakspeare to bring both types of womanhood into one field of view. Ophelia loves the Lord Hamlet, who is her "expectancy and rose of the fair state,"—one to be proud of, cling to, and adore. But, when her father's interference begins to draw her into the contrary current which sweeps her life away, she develops no power of resistance. Even her love is not strong enough to stem the stream that rushes suddenly from subterranean caves to cover her feet and climb to her heart. She has no will for withstanding her father's resolution: her passion has not yet ventured out of its girlish stage, to gather strength and be a threat to her docility. She submissively returns the Prince's cherished words and presents, lets the old father rule her, and goes crazed.
But Helena, though also loving one above her rank, being only a physician's daughter, cannot bear the idea of giving up Count Bertram. Her love is not at first returned; but she contains love enough to furnish both hearts, and she actually follows him to court, to make a captive of him, hoping to light a mutual flame. Such a procedure as that stood not within the capacity of Ophelia. No doubt it offends our conventional feeling; so that Helena must not only succeed, but manifest pure and noble qualities on the strange road she takes toward success, if she would gain our sympathy. The play begins quite early to canvass for our favor by showing that she is a noble woman who proceeds thus, and it is in the interest of a love that intends to be pure and legal. It is death to be without Bertram; and love will dare all things, risk life itself, to save the life of love. Why not in a woman as well as in a man? Nay, more likely in her case, for that special reason of womanhood, that positive instinct to be dependent, and to find life at once swallowed up and blessed by something or some person outside of Self. A modern woman, who desires to be independent, is eager to find something upon which she may depend. The Self of the average woman does not really subsist and reach perfect consciousness until the lover makes the claim of another Self upon it. For that which at first appears to be a threat of absorption, annihilation of the individual, turns out to be the bliss of being rendered back. It is only by the loss of mere individuality that an immortal person is established.
What kind of a woman is this one who sallies forth to turn a man into a husband? Shakspeare endows her with natural traits so positive that they claim no repose, are contented with no proficiency, and continually project improvement. "Her dispositions she inherits, which make fair gifts fairer; for where an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities, there commendations go with pity, they are virtues and traitors too; in her they are the better for their simpleness; she derives her honesty, and achieves her goodness." That is to say, not content with being well-born into an amiable disposition, she meditates the career of character. Such a mind allied with purity justifies itself, and can venture behavior which a weak person would be wrecked upon; in whom, therefore, the attempt would be culpable. Conventional manners are the haven within whose break-water the weak ride at safety, where nothing tests and strains their shallow build. When Helena goes to court on the pretext that the King's malady can be cured by a prescription that her dying father confided to her, the King, who prefers male doctors, puts her off and under-values her capacity; but she persists with a sincerity so sparkling, a tone so prompt and clear, a will so hard to repulse, that the King perceives no ordinary woman:—
"Methinks, in thee some blessed spirit doth speak
His powerful sound within an organ weak:
And what impossibility would slay
In common sense, sense saves another way.
Thy life is dear; for all that life can rate
Worth name of life, in thee hath estimate,
Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, honor, all
That happiness and prime can happy call."
So this ennobled daughter of a doctor aspires to wed the noble son of a countess. Shakspeare attacks the social etiquette of his own age and of all secluded circles. Helena should be filled with grief for the father lately dead; but her "imagination carries no favor in it, but only Bertram's."