s of his heart
were not political; and when he indulges himself, as he did in his
latest plays, you must look for him in the wilds; whether on the road
near the shepherd's cottage, or in the cave among the mountains of
Wales, or on the seashore in the Bermudas. The laws that are imposed
upon the intricate relations of men in society were a weariness to him;
and in this he is thoroughly English. The Englishman has always been an
objector, and he has a right to object, though it may very well be held
that he is too fond of larding his objection with the plea of
conscience. But even this has a meaning in our annals; as a mere
question of right we are very slow to prefer the claim of the organized
opinions of society to the claim of the individual conscience. We know
that there is no good in a man who is doing what he does not will to do.
We are not like our poets or our men of action to be void of
inspiration. A gift is nothing if there is no benevolence in the giver:

For to the noble mind
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.

We ask for the impulse as well as the deed. Even when he is speaking of
social obligations Shakespeare makes his strongest appeal not to force
or command, but to the natural piety of the heart:

If ever you have looked on better days,
If ever been where bells have knolled to church,
If ever sat at any good man's feast,
If ever from your eyelids wiped a tear,
And know what 'tis to pity and be pitied,
Let gentleness my strong enforcement be:
In the which hope I blush, and hide my sword.

So speaks Orlando when the Duke has met his threats with fair words;
and he adds an apology:

Pardon me, I pray you;
I thought that all things had been savage here,
And therefore put I on the countenance
Of stern commandment.

The ultimate law between man and man, according to Shakespeare, is the
law of pity. I suppose that most of us have had our ears so dulled by
early familiarity with Portia's famous speech, which we probably knew by
heart long before we were fit to understand it, that the heavenly
quality of it, equal to almost anything in the New Testament, is
obscured and lost. There is no remedy but to read it again; to remember
that it was conceived in passion; and to notice how the meaning is
raised and perfected as line follows line:

_Portia_. Then must the Jew be merciful.

_Shylock_. On what compulsion must I? Tell me th