Note the way in which Shakespeare’s characters—Macbeth, for example—unfold themselves by new circumstances, what unconjecturable development takes place.
When a serious defect presents itself in a living friend it seems to obtrude itself, press upon us, and affect our judgment more than if we see it in a play of Shakespeare’s. In the play the background of counterbalancing virtue is not obscured and forgotten. In actual life we lose sight of it.
FINIS
‘He that considers how little he dwells upon the condition of others will learn how little the attention of others is attracted by himself. While we see multitudes passing before us, of whom perhaps not one appears to deserve our notice, or excite our sympathy, we should remember that we likewise are lost in the same throng; that the eye which happens to glance upon us is turned in a moment on him that follows us, and that the utmost which we can reasonably hope or fear, is to fill a vacant hour with prattle, and be forgotten.’—The Rambler, No 159.
FOOTNOTES
[148] On the 24th April 1885 a fire broke out in an oil-monger’s house in the Borough. The inmates were the oil-monger, his wife, four children, and Alice, the servant-of-all-work. She came to the window as soon as the alarm was raised and shouted for help. Before the fire brigade arrived the whole building was in flames. The people in the street called to her to jump and held out clothes to break her fall, but she went back and presently reappeared dragging a feather bed with her, which she pushed out. It was instantly extended below, and Alice fetched one of the children and threw it most carefully down. It was saved, and two other children also were saved by her in the same way. By this time it was evident that the suffocating fumes were beginning to affect her, for her aim with the last two was not steady. The crowd implored her to leap, but it was too late. She could not make a proper spring and fell on the ground. Five minutes afterwards the engines and fire-escape appeared. She was picked up and died in Guy’s Hospital. I begged her portrait from her brother. It is not remarkable. That, perhaps, is the best thing that can be said about it. It is a pleasant, brave face—a face that you might see a dozen times on a Sunday afternoon.—M. R.
[205] The references are to the first edition, that of 1793.
[250] Even this word disappears in the Revised Version, where the Greek is translated ‘reviling Him.’
[254] The vulgar is the wiser, because it is but as wise as it must needes.—(Florio’s translation.)