The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-02-14

In view of a possible lecture during the coming week on Shakespeare's King Lear and the time and thought that members of several clubs have given to its study this winter a discussion of the characters in the play given recently be- fore the Quest club by Mrs. Sumter Be- thea, will prove decidedly interesting to those who have been students of the re- markable tragedy. Mrs. Bethea's view point is original and distinctly different from that of many authorities thus it Is all the more pleasing to the student of Shakespeare, and there are many here, as has been shown by the enthusiasm which greeted Dr. Loseys interpretation of Othello. The writer is one of the most brilliant women in club circles and has written number of treatises that have created the most enthusiastic admiration This is one of her most scholarly efforts.
 This Titanic drama stands alone in liter ature; stupendous in it's scheme, archety- pal of the whole evolutionary process, the finite conception of an infinite plan, the greatest achievement of dramatic art. If that the heavens do not their white
 spirits
 Send quickly down to lame these vile
 offenses;
 Twill come, perforce humanity must prey Upon itself like monsters of the deep"
 This speech put into the mouth of Albany furnishes the key to the conception which produced the play; and Maeterlinck so recognized 1t when he said in his critl- csm: "The gods do not meddle in the actions of Lear-fatality is quite inward, and yet this immense drama unfolds it's five acts upon summit so high as thro' all the forces of heaven and hell had vied to oertop it's peak"
 The puritan interpretation of moral law was being answered by the broad and un- conventional morality taught in the plays of Shakespeare.
 The main plot turns on the negative character of Lear, but the passions of Edmund develop the subordinate plot and precipitate the closing catastrophe; a catastrophe so thoroughly sustained that the effect is absolutely soothing; the mind is drawn from the contemplation of pain and horror and directed to some future at tainment in the eternal scheme. We are lifted to a higher plane of racial develop ment and given hope of better things. Through the darkness which envelops the closing scene shines the sublime optimism of Shakespeare.
 Each age has lived as near the truth as was possible and passed away, but along the highway, from time to time, these sons of God have saved it to suc- ceeding ages. The earlier comedies are the summer blossoms of this fertile inn agination, but the tragedies are the au- tumn fruit that nourishes the soul lifes.
 Shakespeare's virile intellect, guided by a sublime faith, seemed able to grasp entire the verities of life, and like god to hold in the palm of it's hand the world of thought.
 Emerson has said, "The whole man does not die, but his immortal part lives on in human progress;" and in this tragedy which is a complex representation of two cycles of human experience, so co-or- dnated as to illustrate the governing law of all, Shakespeare reveals the truth that human character alone has shaped man s destiny, produced the different problems and phases of government, nodded the political divisions of the world and is that basic power of all progress leading to the final goal, the dominion of love and justice in the everlasting kingdom of the re-created earth,
 In both plots the obligation of parent to child has been violated, and Shakespeare | treatment from this standpoint is unique.
 The older play represents Lear as a meek and pendent old man, stricken in grief for his "deare queen"-wanting time to ''thinke upon the welfare of his soule, but Shakespeare's Lear Is anything but meek; he Is the personifcation of egoism, the incarnation of sel1shness a stranger to the passion of love, reeking with nor tality, the smell of which he would fain wipe from his hands. He represents psychologically a high order of physical , and mental development suddenly con- fronted by spiritual law; baffled by this sudden advent of a power which he failed utterly to meet, it sweeps him over the