The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-02-14
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 precipice of the material world into that dark abyss which Renan says the weak ! ness of human nature has created be- tween God and man.
 Lear Is introduced as an old man in his dotage who, having become weary of lifes burdens and enamored of her pleas ures, conceives for himself an earthly paradise of physical enjoyment. He does not love- but he would be loved, because he conceives 1t to be one of the luxuries of life, and eraftily plans to purchase worlds of this pleasurable emotion with the kingdom of which he has grown tired. Transforming to younger shoulders the burdens and cares of empire, he pro- vides abundantly for all worldliness and | proceeds to crawl toward death' with an hundred drunken knights and pes tient fool at his heels. He finds that ! love is not a commodity of the conner cial world, and that the blessings and l honors peculiar to a king must be en- | joyed in office; that we must ever sus- 1 tain a rational and reasonable relation | to our obpective surroundings or forfeit the blessings which these environments might offer.
 Baffled at the outset by this advent of law, he experiences nervous shock, and his mentality begins to crumble. J Genefil and Began are the victims of this mistaken conception of life for he | is the tempter who invites these two older sisters into the sin of self-seeking fattery Ca selfishness so marked in the parent could hardly be wiped out in one generation). By the introduction of the II underplot these characters begin to de- ' terorate and they finally become en- | meshed in sin so dark that it is difficult | to follow them to the close of their ca reer
 Edmund, the natural son of Gloster, ! handsome, intellectual and cultured, pit ting an indomitable will power against the plague of customs" which deprives him of legitimate and honorable sphere l of action, failing to reconcile his fate with the workings of higher and dominant , will, breaks with all moral law and de- clares:
 l Thou, Nature, art my goddess; | To thy law my services are bound"
 Thus warped by circumstances over | which he had no control, he dedicates to evil those powers of mind which might | have been productive of so much good. | There was a certain nobleness and even | meekness in his nature by which he gained spiritual If not a temporal vic tory. After he was fatally wounded in the duel by Edgar whom he had not recognized, he said:
 If thou art noble I do forgive thee"
 Edgar replies:
 Lets exchange charity.
 I am no less in blood than thou art,
 Edmund
 My name is Edgar, and thy fathers son"
 Upon the theory that sin must wipe out sin, he goes on
 "The gods just, and of our vices make instrumentsA to plague us"
 Thoroughly saturated with natural re- ligion, Shakespeare presents in this drama a study so profound as to sug- gest the inspiration of the old prophets. | whose lessons lie deep in the physical i qfo lp6 rd nf the most searching study. As>a revela ton of ethical and psychological truth the production of King Lear" places Shakes peare far in advance of his age or any age when we consider he has actually portrayed the final triumph of the spirit ual life in the character of Cordelia, who by cultivated will so attuned the phy sical with the spiritual vibrations that death itself was swallowed up in vic- tory.
 "We are not ourselves when nature be-
 ing oppressed
 Compels the mind to suffer with the
 body"
 | But when the mind is supreme then have we come into our rightful inherit ance of dominion. Before going further in our search for the deeper truths of this drama let us briefly consider it's historic significance. The incongruities of time, place and custom show that the author was not cireumscribed by the requirements of a mere narrative; and sure to give 1t that characteristic of universal application. And yet Is consist ent with those main historic facts estab- lshed by long periods of time.
 The double plot illustrates the eternal analogy of history and the ever-recur- ring personal catastrophe which has marked every crisis of historic develop ment.
 Lear represents the old type of the ab- | sonal motives, and the two sisters illus trate the instability of mere human insti- tutions. The Earl of Kent, as embodyng civic and social virtue in advance of his age is true to the historic character of that old English county; and Edgar forgetful of self applying the lessons of the past to future reforms, stands for that patriotism that has saved humanity from utter despair. The united kingdoms as the finale of the play was a fact con- temporary with Shakespeare, and repre- sents the limit of the actual political de- veloprnent of his own country. Guizot tells us there has been no great principle of civilization which prior to its diffusion was not nurtured in the bosom of France; so Cordelia. the wife of the French King, bringing order out of chaos, is true to this theory of the most profound philosophic historian of modern times.
 Passing to the strict psychological in- depreciation, we are struck with Shake speares intuitive perception of those laws which the latest research has declared as a study of spiritual evolution we have but to compare the two extremes Lear and Cordeia. Lear is represented in the story as having lived about 1000 years before the Christian era, and represents the highest attainment of mere physical development. He was about five genera tions removed from Brut, the founder of the old British empire, and who claimed to be the grandson of Aeneas. This old magician lost his life in defiance of natural law, and the son lived to learn that spiritual laws must also be recognized
 Upon the developed brain organism of that old classic age the imagination pie tured the widest possibilities of human attainment. Man became so enamored