And when the noble Kent would have interceded, his frenzied wrong-headedness peremptorily destroyed the last hope of remedy:
“Peace, Kent!
Come not between the dragon and his wrath.”
Then, with the piteous side-revelation,—
“I loved her most, and thought to set my rest
On her kind nursery,”—
he subscribed and sealed his hideous fault by harshly driving the poor, sweet Cordelia from his presence, and banishing from his dominions the best friend he ever had, honest Kent.
The disease in the nature of Lear, a morbid self-consciousness that prevented alike self-rule and self-knowledge, did not let his passion expire like flaming tinder, but kept it long smouldering. Forrest pictured to perfection its recurring swells and tardy subsidence. Each advancing step showed more completely the vice that had cloyed the kingly nobility and gradually prepared the retributive tempest about to burst. His injured vanity feeding itself with its own inflaming deception now made his fancy ascribe to the angelic Cordelia, dismantled from the folds of his old favor, such foul and ugly features of character that he called her
“A wretch whom nature is ashamed
Almost to acknowledge hers,”—