SHAKESPEARE AND PSYCHOGNOSIS 29 



happiness, but with his grief, trouble, labor, endurance, all the varied emotions of 

 life, until she is a part of his habit of thought; until, in a word, every work becomes 

 a labor of love, and his energies are radiated into high activities through her invalu- 

 able influence in idealizing him, and herself in him. Before the scene closes she is 

 consoling him in his weakness and discouragement, and thereby associating herself 

 with his strongest emotions. 



Scientific criticism must recognize, however it fails duly to appreciate, the mas- 

 sive romantic feeling of this scene. To fail in this is to throw the play quite out of 

 joint. Yet this is precisely the difficulty in estimating this play; to preserve the 

 simplicity of a youthful reader of romance, and to estimate the subtle motives of 

 Prospero; to be synthetic and analytic at once. 



The scene reveals Miranda as the daughter of Prospero. The father is a concrete 

 harmonized paradox of the most contrasted qualities — subtlety and simplicity, 

 strength and sensitiveness, social power and love of solitude. The daughter is like 

 him in the feminine sphere — learned but natural, sweet but scathing, infinitely modest, 

 absolutely bold for her rights. 



It is in this graceful sublation of the most poignantly contrasted qualities that 

 her character consists. The feminine gentleness of Miranda, and her youth, must 

 not blind the critic to her greatness; she is naive, but great, and this appears chiefly 

 in her rightness of affection, a strong naturalness guaranteeing lesser goods. She 

 is not bold and modest, or bold in spite of her modesty; her boldness is her modesty. 

 It is not in suffering paradox, but in the vital harmonizing of paradox into a higher 

 grace, that her superior charm consists. Her selfishness is good for the world, yet 

 it is without afterthought. She is the daughter of Prospero, by birth and education, 

 and like him she has that sympathy which identifies self with the social world. She 

 has self-knowledge without self-consciousness, s)mipathy compatible with dignity 

 and independence; Prospero's wisdom, vast, minute, analytic, is in Miranda a vital 

 instinct, equally sure but smoother; the highest art struck into natural simplicity. 

 She is a return to nature from the extreme refinement of a well-balanced culture. 



The fifth scene reveals the lovers in their perfection: 



"The mistress which I serve quickens what's dead 

 And makes my labours pleasures." 



Labor not for love is labor lost; a futile fever of exertion. Labor performed for 

 affection is the sole cause of progress. All social affections center in and radiate 

 from romantic feeling. This is the poetic philosophy. Miranda's character is 

 massed rather than analyzed. After this scene she speaks only five times, and her 

 speeches are brief and of little importance. Her life and character are summed up 

 in the idea of romantic love used as an encouragement to labor. The sympathies 

 displayed in the earlier scenes, the hatred of the backward Caliban, the boldness in 

 welcoming the prince, the words of support, comfort, consolation which she tenderly 



