The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-12-21

entirely different kind of literary work.
History was for TIE time forgotten and
| free scope was given to fancy amid the
scenes of puIelG ideal lIfe-an Arcadia
where they fleet the time carelessly
as they did in the golden world" the
result is pastoral drama in which we
have almost unbroken, sunshine, nc
more OF shadow being introduced than
serves to give variety to the scene 1t
is not the shadow that forebodes the
coming of the night or of tempest, but
rather like that of a passing summer
cloud, or like that of the green canopy
Of pleasant wood, falling, fiecked with
sunlight sifted through the leaves, upon
the velvet sward below.
The story of the play is tissue OF
improbabiiitieS. We might, perhaps, go
as far as a certain critic does In call
ing it Childish and absurd" and yet,
as he adds, lit has been for 800 years
the groundwork of perhaps the most
constantly delightful and popular com
edy in the English language" This Is
partly due to the subtle effect OF the
Charmed air Of that forest of Arden,
in which we forget to be critical We
can syppatflize with the poet Camp
bell, who when he first detected some
of the incongruities in the play after
having been blind to them for many
.,
of his love for the comedy-and love,
as he said, lis willfully blind. Away
with your best-proved inprcbabiiltles
when the heart has been touched ana
fancy fascinatedr'
But it was not the scene and the at
mosphere that made him-that make
us-love the play, but the fact tnat the
leading characters are not mere pup
pete,. as we might expect them to be
do. CIR faIf
women We cannot help loving tnem
and following their fortunes with the
keenest interest and sympathy. Shake
epeareS characters become so real 10
us that we keep cur interest in them
after the curtain has fallen upon their
fortunes. We speculate as to their
subsequent behavior and welfare ana
dispute as to their probable rate. we
enjoy going back to the beginning OF
the drama, as Mary Cowden-Clarke has
done in her "Girlhood of Shakespeare
Heroines," and Lady Martin in some OF
her delightful studies of the characters
she had personated on The stage. Inc
questions they suggest nave a peren-
NAL fascination.
Rosaiind must be reckoned one OF the
most charming Of Sllakespeare's wom-
en-. Perhaps She reminds US more Oh
Beatrice than any. other OF them, ana
yet she is not wholly like her. She is
as witty, as piquant, as 'vivacious, but
she has a lovelinesS and fascination
all her own. In her disguise, though
she wears it naturally and easily
quite unlike Viola, for instance, who is
never entirely at ease in it-she does
not lose her feminine sweetness and
delicacy-
She has singularly healthy nature
.metally and morally no less than
She iS cnifrd and sweet in
heart, as she is fair of face. How adj
she puts to flight the melan-
choly Jaques with his self-potted sem
his Travelled affectation
and conceit How witty and how wom-
anly her snubbing of the pert little
Phebe when the shepherdesS laughs at
the idea that she can ever suffer from
loves keen arrows, as Silvius does
Rosalind comes forward and addresses
the pitiless coquette:
And why. 1 pray you? Who might be
your mother.
That you insult, exuf, and all at once.
Over the wretched?
But. mistress. know yourself; down on
your knees,
And than heaven. fasting. for good
Cry the man mercy; love him; take his
Foul is most foul. being foul to be
Never did silly girl get better school
ing than that-and from girl, we may
no older than herself, though
her superior in heart
and head.
Orlando is her manly counterpart
like her, a thoroughly healthy nature.
| know no better word to de. cribe them
briefly Once, for moment. when the
slky is very dark. he gives way to de-
soondencr-
but, poor old man. thou prun'st a rotten
tree,
That cannot - much as a blossom yield
In lieu of alr thy pains and husbandry;
but with the very next breath he takes
heart again
But come thy ways; well go along to-
And s ere We have thy youthful wages
Wen light upon some settled low con-
tent"
He has tenfold more cause to be mel
ancholy than the affected Jaques but
when the latter. in the forests, asks:
will We sit down with me. and we two
will rail against our mistress, the world
and all our misery?" note his reply. Il
will chide no breather in the world sout
myself, against whom 1 know most
faults" No wonder that Jacques sinks