If he looks stedfastly, he looks straight at them,
When he perhaps, good careful gentleman,
Never minds any, but the look he casts
Is at his own intentions, and his object
Only the public good.’
It turns out however, that he had been looking at them, and not ‘at the public good.’ The moral of this tragedy is rendered more impressive from the manly, independent character of Leantio in the first instance, and the manner in which he dwells, in a sort of doting abstraction, on his own comforts, in being possessed of a beautiful and faithful wife. As he approaches his own house, and already treads on the brink of perdition, he exclaims with an exuberance of satisfaction not to be restrained—
‘How near am I to a happiness
That earth exceeds not! Not another like it:
The treasures of the deep are not so precious,
As are the conceal’d comforts of a man