KingLear

bottom that 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 upon 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 gestures shall we appropriate to this? What has the voice or the eye to do with such things? For Lamb, the technical necessities of the theater—the backstage machinery that creates the storm, the actor’s repertoire of gestures, looks......