disposition, is to take those things for bird-bolts, that you deem cannon-bullets.”
Though he has right on his side in objecting to Sir Toby's saturnalia, the same priggish vanity is evident in the method of reproof, bringing down upon him the pungent sarcasm of that moist moralist :
“Art thou any more than a steward 2
Dost thou think
because thou art virtuous there shall be no more cakes and ale 7”
He offends Maria also with his Jack-in-office reproofs. Maria, the “wittiest piece of Eve's flesh in all Illyria,” instantly forms the plan of consummate revenge, namely, to “gull him into a nay-word, and make him a common recreation.” She has taken the exact guage of his self-esteem, and knows every pebble in the hover of vanity where the great trout lies, which she will lure into her grasp with tickling false hoods.
“Mar. I will drop in his way some obscure epistles of love; wherein, by the colour of his beard, the shape of his leg, the manner of his gait, the expressure of his eye, forehead, and
complexion, he shall find himself most feelingly personated : I can write very like my lady, your niece; on a forgotten matter we can hardly make distinction of our hands. Sir To. Excellent 1 I smell a device.
Sir And. I have’t in my nose too. Sir To. He shall think, by the letters that thou wilt drop,
that they come from my niece, and that she is in love with him.
Malvolio has made enemies on every side, by the tale bearing arts of upper-servant diplomacy, so that recruits to the ambuscade of frolic are easy to find. Fabian will be boiled to death with melancholy, “rather than lose a scruple of the sport,” and Sir Toby will “fool him black and blue.” The poor victim's proclivity to folly is carefully elaborated before Maria's wicked device of the letter makes the cup brim o'er.
