the suffering of some imagined being, uniting
goodness with beauty, or virtue with plainness, or uncommon purity and
intellect even with deformity; for even that may be so overpowered in
the prominent harmony of superior intellect and moral worth, as to be
virtually neutralized, at least, to become unobtrusive as a discordant
force. Besides, it cannot be expected that _complete_ harmony is
ever to be realized in our imperfect state; we should else, perhaps,
with such expectation, have no pleasures of the kind we speak of:
nor is this necessary, the imagination being always ready to supply
deficiencies, whenever the approximation is sufficiently near to
call it forth. Nay, if the interest felt be nothing more than mere
curiosity, we still refer to this presiding Principle; which is no
less essential to a simple combination of events, than to the higher
demands of Form or Character. But its presence must be felt, however
slightly. Of this we have the evidence in many cases, and, perhaps,
most conclusive where the partial harmony is felt to verge on a
powerful discord; or where the effort to unite them produces that
singular alternation of what is both revolting and pleasing: as in the
startling union of evil passions with some noble quality, or with a
master intellect. And here we have a solution of that paradoxical
feeling of interest and abhorrence, which we experience in such a
character as King Richard.

And may it not be that we are permitted this interest for a deeper
purpose than we are wont to suppose; because Sin is best seen in the
light of Virtue,--and then most fearfully when she holds the torch to
herself? Be this as it may, with pure, unintellectual, brutal evil
it is very different. We cannot look upon it undismayed: we take no
interest in it, nor can we. In Richard there is scarce a glimmer of
his better nature; yet we do not despise him, for his intellect and
courage command our respect. But the fiend Iago,--who ever followed
him through the weaving of his spider-like web, without perpetual
recurrence to its venomous source,--his devilish heart? Even the
intellect he shows seems actually animalized, and we shudder at its
subtlety, as at the cunning of a reptile. Whatever interest may have
been imputed to him should be placed to the account of his hapless
victim; to the first striving with distrust of a generous nature; to
the vague sense of misery, then its gradual developement, then the
final overthrow