The contemptible machinery
with which they mimic the storm which he goes out in, is not more
inadequate to represent the horrors of the real elements than any
actor can be to represent Lear. The greatness of Lear is not in
corporal dimension, but in intellectual; the explosions of his
passions are terrible as a volcano: they are storms turning up and
disclosing to the bottom that rich sea, his mind, with all its vast
riches. It is his mind which is laid bare. This case of flesh and
blood seems too insignificant to be thought on; even as he himself
neglects it. On the stage we see nothing but corporal infirmities
and weakness, the impotence of rage; while we read it, we see not
Lear, but we are Lear;--we are in his mind, we are sustained by a
grandeur, which baffles the malice of daughters and storms; in the
aberrations of his reason, we discover a mighty irregular power of
reasoning, immethodized from the ordinary purposes of life, but
exerting its powers, as the wind blows where it listeth, at will on
the corruptions and abuses of mankind. What have looks or tones to
do with that sublime identification of his age with that of THE
HEAVENS THEMSELVES, when in his reproaches to them for conniving at
the injustice of his children, he reminds them that "they themselves
are old!" What gesture shall we appropriate to this? What has the
voice or the eye to do with such things? But the play is beyond all
art, as the tamperings with it show: it is too hard and stony; it
must have love-scenes, and a happy ending.
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