The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1892-12-09
SHAKESPEARE'S LOVERS.
His Women Were Matured and Usually
Faithful to the End,

His Women Were Matured and Usually
Faithful to the End,
Emerson tells us that "all mankind
love lover There is common every
day proof enough that the saying is
wise. The greatest of dramatists loved
and faithfully pictured lovers, not for
getting to chide them gently and to
laugh at them as all mankind also do.
The plays of Shakespeare contain
throng of lovers, of whom he seems
not over fond. He tells us that "all
true lovers swear more performance than
they are able > that "a lover may be-
stride gossamer that idles in the wan
ton summer air > 'at lovers perjuries,
they say, Jove laughs ) and, worst jibe
of all, that the oath of lover is no
stronger that the word of tapster p
and other such asides, while the eternal
business of love making goes on in his
drama very precisely as it goes on in
the whole world. He hardly stops to
repeat the old jest that Love is blind
and lovers can not see the pretty follies
that they themselves commit, while he
goes on with the endless tale of loves
destinations and achievements.
Leaving out these gentle bursts OF
musical laughter, the most careless
reader of Shakespeare must learn that
love is treated by him in marvel
lously just measure, and attains in these
plays to an exceptional dignity. This
is partly because he does not always
play on one string, but associates the
music of love with other human melody;
because he has given us but one Juliet.
and only once let us associate with his
Cleopatra because his lovers have al
ways some other strong human inter-
est for us because in short, he does
not write what we nowadays call love
stories, but does write stories into which
love enters as into real lfe-as o. part
ner with other emotions, and interests.
Note, for example, how Portia in the
Merchant of Venice is made much of for
other things and not so very much of as
the lover of Antonio's fortune-hunting
friend. And compare that other loving
Portia, "Cato's daughter, whom Lord
Brutus took to wife," with her strong
and human heart and her intense devo-
ton to her Brutus.
Shakespeare is not less wise in deal
ing objectiyely, for the greater part,
with his lovers. We are only specta-
tors, even when we listen to the end
less monologue or dialogue of the love-
smitten. The modern subjective love
story is made wearisome by overmuch
study of the moral inwards of the
lovers. Shakespeare did not decline
upon the psychologist analysis of human
emotions, and, therefore, we see lovers
in his plays as we see them in our own
world, and this is the wholesome way
of attending this everlasting spectacle.
1t is no small cause of the dignity
love wears in our dramatist that his
lovers are not often boys and girls. He
has, SO to speak, ripened fruit which
is hardly to be enjoyed when it is green.
Indeed. he has scarcely given us one
pair of lovers about whom we feel that
they are very young and most of them
present the appearance of mature man.
liness and womanliness. OF the men.
excepting Orlando, the beloved of Rosa
lind, and the boy who runs off with
Jessica, Shylock's daughter, we can not
be far wrong in assuming that they
have attained to maturity. And to
what mind do Imogen, Rosalind, Portia
and Ophelia seem to be in their early
girlhood? There is comfortable
sense of matronliness about all these
women, and they are weighted, too,
with character, thing which Shakes
peare thought highly appropriate in
women.
Of one common condiment in love
stories, Shakespeare is very frugal,
that is to say, faithlessness. His lovers
for the most part are as good as they
engaged to be, and they do not seem to
have discovered those awful mistakes
Of choice which justify loving another
mans wife or eloping with another girl.
think the absence of faithlessness
can not be explained on the ground that
we have grown so much more wicked
that unfaithfulness enters much mo-
largely into modern life.
The prevalence of unfaithfulness in
our modern novel is probably due to
the fact that pestilent French doctrines
and practices have invaded our Anglo
American world. Remembering what
we are suffering from the contemporary
literature of love, let us be properly
thankful for goodly company of faith
full lovers in our Shakespeare, and let
US also take courage to believe that
Shakespeare is nearer tie right view of
the facts than the modern French novel;
ist. He presented the world very ex-
actly as it presented itself to his obser-
vation, and we can not doubt that he
would have harped upon unfaithfulness
if he had believed it to be the rule of
life where lovers play their parts.
Probably he saw clear