^THE BATTALION, College Station, Texas.
love, that is but the child of fancy, gives place to the love
that is genuine. Olivia’s misplaced fondness for the dis
guised girl finds its real fruition in the plighted love of Vio-
a’s twin brother. The disorder that had reigned without
check in the Lady Olivia’s house, we can imagine changed
into civil rule when Sebastian takes his place there as mas
ter—Sir Toby’s marriage to Maria, that “youngest wren of
nine,” removing sundry elements ol mischiel and uproar.
Such, then, is the general atmo phere—momentary con
fusion, misconception, mistake, a comedy of errors, to which
good order and peace are to succeed, with large happiness
flowing softly on from the foot of a very cataract of mirth.
Let us swiftly follow Viola in the play, and try to catch
at some light but sure indications of her individuality.
The Duke, to whom she is to lose her heart, is music-
loving, sentimental, and fanciful. He opens the play with a
speech of exquisite poetry; and at once his love for Olivia,
analogous to Romeo’s for Rosaline ere he had seen Juliet,
the “high-fantastical” fore-runner of true love is revealed.
In the very next scene Viola is introduced, newly saved
from the sea, and helped by the counsel of the ship’s captain.
She is placed in service with the Duke Orsino, under the
disguise of a page, her sympathy with him in his fondness
for music being revealed by her declaration before she had
ever seen him:
“For I can sing
And speak to him in many sorts of music
That will allow me very worth his service.”
Within three days she has won his favor, and is sent by
him to press his suit to the Lrdy Olivia. These same three
days are enough to win for him her loee unsought, for sue
says, as she departs on this mission:
“Whoe’r I woo, myself would be his wife.”
In Olivia’s presence she plays to perfection the part of
the brilliant young courtier, ironical in his matter, siarcastia
in his manner; in pride, grace and beauty, patrician all over,
as Olivia—a competent judge—sees at once; and poetical
withal, in the eloquence wuth which he sets f^rth Orsino’s
love.
There is such a charm in the talk and bearing of the
mock Cesario, that Olivia to all that he says of what he
would do, were he Orsino, answers meaningly:
“You might do much.”
The moment she is left alone Olivia repeats his assertion,
“I am a gentleman,” and comments thus:
“I’ll be sworn thou art;
Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions and spirit,
Do give thee five-fold blazon.”
The circumstances of Olivia’s sending a ring to her by
Malvolio convinces Viola that the poor lady has lost her
heart to the seeming gentleman. The revelation is a painful
one to Viola. In her pity for Olivia she does not lose sight
of her own fault in the matter, but cries:
“Disguise, I see, thou art a wickedness,
Wherein the pregnant enemy does much.
How easy it is for the proper-false
In women’s w r axen hearis to set their forms!
Alas, our frailty is the cause, not wef
When Viola next appears before us the impassioned
words of the Duke, who is so sensitive to music, are thrilling
her ea:s, as he pours out to her ready sympathy his feelings
about love and lovers. Knowing how she is affected toward
him, we cannot but feel with her, whose every delicate nerve
is played upon, each in its turn, by the unconscious object of
her affections. It would be hard to say whether there was
more of torture or of rapture in ihat exaltation of the soul
which this interview and the melancholy music that accom
panied it must have inspired in her. To his question:
“How 7 dost thou like this tune?” she answers, be sure,
with all her heart in her eyes:
“It gives a very echo to the seat
Where love is throned.”
When the song is over and he urges her once more to woo
Olivia for him, and she argues that love cannot be forced,
suggesting that soma woman may love him even as he loves
Olivia, the duke’s vehement declaration that no woman’s
love can compare with that he bears Olivia wrings from her
the heart-cry that she knows
“Too well what love women to men may owe:
In faith, they are as true of hearts as we.
My father had a daughter loved a man,
As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman,
I should your lordship.”
When he asks:
“And what’s her history?”
Ho tv pathetic the answer:
“A b-ank, my lord. She never told her 1 ove,
But let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek; she pined in bought,
And with a green and yellow melancholy
She sat like patience on a monument,
Smiling at gtief. W'as not this love indeed?
We men may say more, swear more: hut indeed
Our shows aie more ;han will; for still we prove
Much in our vows, but little in our love.”'
In her next interview with Olivia the great lady, over
come by the suddenness of her passion and the feeling that
in this case the wooing must come from her side or not be
made at all, declares her love, and Viola retires, only to fall
in the trap laid for her and the doughty Sir Andrew by Sir
Toby and Fabian. When swords are drawn by unwilling
duelists, Antonio comes in and parts them; and the very
next time Viola appears, she, who had so lately failed to
show the man’s active courage, shows the woman’s passive
courage—the martyr spirit in contrast with the hero spirit—
on the occasion of the Duke’s threat to kill her for winning
Olivia’s love. What does she say?
“And I, most jocund, apt and willing.
To do jou rei-t, a thousand deaths would die.”
The run of misconceptions comes thick and fast for a few 7
moments after the Duke’s and Olivia’s moral struggle for the
disguised Viola; but all doubts are soon cleared by Sebas
tian’s appearance at his sister’s side. The Duke gets near
enough to whisper in his page’s ear:
“Boy, thou hast said to me a thousand times
Thou never ahouldst love woman like to me.”
And viola answers:
“And ad those sayings will I over-swear;
And all those swearings k. ep a- true in soul
As doth that orbed continent the fire
That severs day from night.”
Now, what light do w r e get from this rapid review of our
disguised girl’s share in the play? It seems to me that her
character stands revealed clearly enough—a sweet; true, lov
ing, womanly one.
We do not find in Viola ar y trace of that dazzling variety
of mood which makes Cleopatra so fascinating in spite of her
wantonness and cruelty, nor ot Rosalind’s brilliant wit, nor
of the quick repartee of Beatr ce, nor of Portia’s grave, sweet
wisdom, nor of Juliet’s fervid and impassioned eloquence,
nor of the purely intellectual poetry and cold reflectiveness
of Isabella in Measure for Measure. She is like Ophelia and
Imogen in that her nature is tender and clinging rather than
vehement or intellectually strong. What site says - of that
imaginary sister, “she never told her love,” reveals her own
nature. We see that she might die of a broken heart, like
Ophelia, if her love came to untoward ending. Her unques
tioning devotion is equal to Imogen’s. The tender, some
what melancholy mood of music is the keynote of her char
acter, as it is to the w'hole tone of the play. The sparkle of
Rosalind’s talk, the exuberant gayety of Beatrice, the sweet
rapture of Juliet, w 7 ould all seem too warm, too bright, too
rich in color, for the symphony in soft tones whmh both
Twelfth Night and Viola’s character seem to me to be meant
by the great master to be.
Delicate imagination is her highest poetical quality. She
does not dominate the play, as so many of Shakespeare’s
charming women do, hut is like the violet she takes her
name from—a fragrant flower half hidden from view until
the sweet scent reveals her presence .to him she would have
to pluck and wear her close to his heart.
Charles Woodward Hutson.
A college education has ceased to be a luxury. It is now
an absolute necessity to every young man who would enter
upon life with an unclouded prospect. Talk as one may about
the superfluity of higher education, it cannot be gainsaid that
its absence makes a successful man’s progress less pleasant,
even if it does not impede it very seriously. There is no wise
young man who would refuse the "opportunity of university
study if he could get it.—The Cloverleaf.