Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1885-03-06
King Lear.

The audience, the actors, the theme,
and the music We're all in cordial har-
mony last night. Bread, shelter and
clothing are not all of life-the best is its
love and its fear, its temptations and the
mastery of manhood. We shut out the
material world and enter the ideal, when
we sit before Lear and Cordelia. For
Lear depicts human life as it is-domi-
mated by thoughtlessness, reproved by
folly, made the nursery of sorrow by
men and women without honor, and the
noblest perishing the most miserably.
The great King Lear maintains noble
ascendency among men till he seeks
to shuttle off the responsibilities of life
and die to duty before his time. Sur
rounded by generals and ministers who
might have taken off his shoulders largely
the burdens of government, he should
have kept his place and employed only
the keen eye of the master. No man has
a right to retire from the worlds work so
long as the world needs him, if he have
breath within his body and steady brain
within his head. The abandonment of
duty is the foundation of Lear's misfor-
tunes. Time nor age discharges man
from his place only death, which is the
transfer from mortal to immortal life.
Fair Cordelia stands for those "who die
with all their music in Them" Welded to
truth, yet in modesty failing to- claim
their rank among the god-like; weak
in expression, yet strong in action; slow
to promise, yet swift to perform; holding
love too high and sacred to repeat in
honied words before the thoughtless
throng, and loving still beyond all words.
So these two, misunderstanding and
wounded in heart, part to follow the ways
of pain or mental suffering. Having re-
jected an honest heart, Lear leans first
on one and then on the other of his
treacherous daughters. Outrage follows
insult, till his gray head finds no shelter
from the pitiless storm but the trees
SHERIDAN's picture of the madness of
Lear is all that the histrionic art
demands, and all that the most
rigid critic can exact If 1T fails at all it is
because the Shaksperean thought is I'M
true to nature. Misery does not make
mad nor does sorrow kill. Men live and
bear their burdens-neither the darkness
of slumbering intellect nor the peace of the
grave comes to their relief. They 90
among men and carry their load; the
pangs of hunger drive them to labor and
though all that falsehood and betrayal
can do be fully done to heap suffering up
on them, yet they must off to the worlds
workshop and strive for foothold among
their fellows. If only men and women
could die when the burden grows too
heavy, heaven would have added mil
lions to its singing hosts, and earth would
be so thinned out that half its houses
would be tenantless.
Can weak old fellow be forgiven for
dropping tear at Cordelias feet? Can
his imaginings be altogether at fault
when he thinks that the mimic Cordelia
is but shadow of the real LOUISE DAvEN-
PORT? Can a woman show herself alto
gether lovely in the impersonation of an
other and yet herself be unlovely? We
think not; and SO when the gentle visage
of the one shall flash across the memory,
the name of the other shall stand with it
as of one who, alike true to art and true
to nature, must also be true to all who
stand in her gracious presence.