Then away she started,
To deal with grief alone.
Here the last line—the image brought before us of Cordelia starting away from observation, "to deal with grief alone," is as exquisitely beautiful as it is characteristic.
But all the passages hitherto quoted must yield in beauty and power to that scene, in which her poor father recognizes her, and in the intervals of distraction asks forgiveness of his wronged child. The subdued pathos and simplicity of Cordelia's character, her quiet but intense feeling, the misery and humiliation of the bewildered old man, are brought before us in so few words, and at the same time sustained with such a deep intuitive knowledge of the innermost workings of the human heart, that as there is nothing surpassing this scene in Shakspeare himself, so there is nothing that can be compared to it in any other writer.
CORDELIA.
How does my royal lord? How fares your majesty?
LEAR.
You do me wrong to take me out of the grave.
Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound
Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears
Do scald like molten lead.
CORDELIA.
Sir, do you know me?
LEAR.