It seems impossible that Shakespeare could have done otherwise than drawn from the life in this character. He has in truth and in deed verified the introductory observation, that her mood will needs be pitied, for gentleness and goodness, struggling in the deepest affliction of which human nature is capable, have never been more finely drawn; and yet not overdrawn, for in the vivid reality of the picture there is not one touch of mawkishness. Compare, in this respect, the love-lorn maiden of Sterne, poor Maria, who allowed the stranger to wipe away the tears that trickled down her cheeks with his handkerchief, which he steeped in his own, and then in hers, then in his own, until it was steeped too much to be of any further use. "And where will you dry it, Maria?" said I. "I will dry it in my bosom," said she, "it will do me good." One never meets with such bathos of sentiment as this in the real insane, nor in the insane characters of the great master. Ophelia's prettinesses are as natural as they are touching. The freshness of reality encircles her head like the wild flowers with which she weaves her garlands. This fantastical dress of straws and flowers is a common habit of the insane, but it seems more natural in Ophelia than in the angry and raging madness of old Lear, in whom it is also represented. The picture of her insanity is perfected by many other touches as natural and true. She
"Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt,
That carry but half sense."
She winks, and nods, and makes gestures, which have the double effect of breeding dangerous conjectures in the minds of the people, and of delineating, with exactness, the habits and practices of gentle but general mania. There is no consistency in her talk, or rather, there is only the consistency of incoherence, with two prominent ideas, the loss of her lover, and her father's death.
