oof!

And in the midst of her self-abandonment, never allows us to contemn,
even while we pity her:--

What shall you ask of me that I'll deny.
That honor, saved, may upon asking give?

The distance of rank which separates the Countess from the youthful
page--the real sex of Viola--the dignified elegance of Olivia's
deportment, except where passion gets the better of her pride--her
consistent coldness towards the Duke--the description of that "smooth,
discreet, and stable bearing" with which she rules her household--her
generous care for her steward Malvolio, in the midst of her own
distress,--all these circumstances raise Olivia in our fancy, and render
her caprice for the page a source of amusement and interest, not a
subject of reproach. _Twelfth Night_ is a genuine comedy;--a perpetual
spring of the gayest and the sweetest fancies. In artificial society men
and women are divided into castes and classes, and it is rarely that
extremes in character or manners can approximate. To blend into one
harmonious picture the utmost grace and refinement of sentiment, and
the broadest effects of humor; the most poignant wit, and the most
indulgent benignity;--in short, to bring before us in the same scene,
Viola and Olivia, with Malvolio and Sir Toby, belonged only to Nature
and to Shakspeare.

OPHELIA.

A woman's affections, however strong, are sentiments, when they run
smooth; and become passions only when opposed.

In Juliet and Helena, love is depicted as a passion, properly so called;
that is, a natural impulse, throbbing in the heart's blood, and mingling
with the very sources of life;--a sentiment more or less modified by the
imagination; a strong abiding principle and motive, excited by
resistance, acting upon the will, animating all the other faculties, and
again influenced by them. This is the most complex aspect of love, and
in these two characters, it is depicted in colors at once the most
various, the most intense, and the most brilliant.

In Viola and Perdita, love, being less complex, appears more refined;
more a sentiment than a passion--a compound of impulse and fancy, while
the reflective powers and moral energies are more faintly developed. The
same remark applies also to Julia and Silvia, in the Two Gentlemen of
Verona, and, in a greater degree, to Hermia and Helena in the Midsummer
Night's Dream. In the two latter, though perfectly discriminated, love
takes the visionary fanciful cast, whi