sisters, and she wished
her father in better hands than she was about to leave him in.

Cordelia was no sooner gone, than the devilish dispositions of her
sisters began to show themselves in their true colours. Even before the
expiration of the first month, which Lear was to spend by agreement
with his eldest daughter Goneril, the old king began to find out the
difference between promises and performances. This wretch having got
from her father all that he had to bestow, even to the giving away of
the crown from off his head, began to grudge even those small remnants
of royalty which the old man had reserved to himself, to please his
fancy with the idea of being still a king. She could not bear to see
him and his hundred knights. Every time she met her father, she put on
a frowning countenance; and when the old man wanted to speak with her,
she would feign sickness, or anything to get rid of the sight of him;
for it was plain that she esteemed his old age a useless burden, and
his attendants an unnecessary expense: not only she herself slackened
in her expressions of duty to the king, but by her example, and (it is
to be feared) not without her private instructions, her very servants
affected to treat him with neglect, and would either refuse to obey his
orders, or still more contemptuously pretend not to hear them. Lear
could not but perceive this alteration in the behaviour of his
daughter, but he shut his eyes against it as long as he could, as
people commonly are unwilling to believe the unpleasant consequences
which their own mistakes and obstinacy have brought upon them.

True love and fidelity are no more to be estranged by ill, than
falsehood and hollow-heartedness can be conciliated by good, usage.
This eminently appears in the instance of the good earl of Kent, who,
though banished by Lear, and his life made forfeit if he were found in
Britain, chose to stay and abide all consequences, as long as there was
a chance of his being useful to the king his master. See to what mean
shifts and disguises poor loyalty is forced to submit sometimes; yet it
counts nothing base or unworthy, so as it can but do service where it
owes an obligation! In the disguise of a serving man, all his greatness
and pomp laid aside, this good earl proffered his services to the king,
who, not knowing him to be Kent in that disguise, but pleased with a
certain plainness, or rather bluntness in his answers, which the earl
put on (so diffe