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It was proof of the guide's woodcraft that he was able to come thus close before being detected by Timon, who advanced threateningly toward him. A word, however, from the lieutenant stayed the dog. "Well, Vose," said the young man, "this is unexpected." "So I jedge and I've a 'spicion that you ain't tickled half to death to see me."
This was the last feast which ever Timon made, and in it he took farewell of Athens and the society of men; for, after that, he betook himself to the woods, turning his back upon the hated city and upon all mankind, wishing the walls of that detestable city might sink, and the houses fall upon their owners, wishing all plagues which infest humanity, war, outrage, poverty, diseases, might fasten upon its inhabitants, praying the just gods to confound all Athenians, both young and old, high and low; so wishing, he went to the woods, where he said he should find the unkindest beast much kinder than mankind.
"Athens offers you dignities whereby you may honorably live." "Athens confesses that your merit was overlooked, and wishes to atone, and more than atone, for her forgetfulness," said the second senator. "Worthy senators," replied Timon, in his grim way, "I am almost weeping; you touch me so! All I need are the eyes of a woman and the heart of a fool." But the senators were patriots.
The easy-going persons who reluct at the idea of a pessimistic Shakespeare should turn the pages of Troilus and Cressida, Measure for Measure, and Timon of Athens. What we guessed as we read Hamlet and Lear grows a certainty as we read these plays. Here the "gentle Shakespeare" does the three things that are most unpardonable. He unmasks virtue; he betrays Woman; and he curses the gods.
After slaughter of Duncan, Macbeth appears in his night-gown as if aroused from sleep; Timon ends in rags the play he had begun in splendour; Richard flatters the London citizens in a suit of mean and shabby armour, and, as soon as he has stepped in blood to the throne, marches through the streets in crown and George and Garter; the climax of The Tempest is reached when Prospero, throwing off his enchanter's robes, sends Ariel for his hat and rapier, and reveals himself as the great Italian Duke; the very Ghost in Hamlet changes his mystical apparel to produce different effects; and as for Juliet, a modern playwright would probably have laid her out in her shroud, and made the scene a scene of horror merely, but Shakespeare arrays her in rich and gorgeous raiment, whose loveliness makes the vault 'a feasting presence full of light, turns the tomb into a bridal chamber, and gives the cue and motive for Romeo's speech of the triumph of Beauty over Death.
We have, therefore, immediately to revise our opinion of this severe dissector of the human heart, and to endeavour to find out what lay underneath the bitterness of his "Maximes." It is a complete mistake to look upon La Rochefoucauld as a monster, or even as a Timon.
He built a small solitary house upon a mole in the sea, and shut himself up, a prey to those passions that are the tormentors of unsuccessful tyranny. There he passed his time; shunning all commerce with man kind, and professing to imitate Timon, the man-hater. 32.
Yes, O my Bobus, I, who was once, as to money, "still in motion of raging waste," and, like Timon, "senseless of expense," I, who have many a time borrowed cash of you with amiable recklessness, and have never asked you to take it back again, I, who have had many a race with the constable, and have sometimes been overtaken, I, who have in my callow days spoken disrespectfully of Mammon in several charming copies of verses, I am waxing sordid.
Five miles of irregular upland, during the long inimical seasons, with their sleets, snows, rains, and mists, afford withdrawing space enough to isolate a Timon or a Nebuchadnezzar; much less, in fair weather, to please that less repellent tribe, the poets, philosophers, artists, and others who "conceive and meditate of pleasant things."
Timon in the wilderness, Diogenes in his tub, could not have been mentally more isolated from annoying human consociation than was at the moment Mr. Heatherbloom, perched on a rickety stool amid a conglomeration of females struggling for lingerie. Suddenly he stirred. "Have you a book department?" he asked an employee. "Straight across; last aisle to the left." Mr.
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