48. 1. Isabel. All earthly love, and the possibilities of it, held in
absolute subjection to the laws of God, and the judgments of His will. She
is Shakspeare's only 'Saint.' Queen Catherine, whom you might next think
of, is only an ordinary woman of trained religious temper:--her maid of
honour gives Wolsey a more Christian epitaph.

2. Cordelia. The earthly love consisting in diffused compassion of the
universal spirit; not in any conquering, personally fixed, feeling.

"Mine enemy's dog,
Though he had bit me, should have stood that night
Against my fire."

These lines are spoken in her hour of openest direct expression; and are
_all_ Cordelia.

Shakspeare clearly does not mean her to have been supremely beautiful in
person; it is only her true lover who calls her 'fair' and 'fairest'--and
even that, I believe, partly in courtesy, after having the instant before
offered her to his subordinate duke; and it is only _his_ scorn of her
which makes France fully care for her.

"Gods, Gods, 'tis strange that from their cold neglect
My love should kindle to inflamed respect!"

Had she been entirely beautiful, he would have honoured her as a lover
should, even before he saw her despised; nor would she ever have been so
despised--or by her father, misunderstood. Shakspeare himself does not
pretend to know where her girl-heart was,--but I should like to hear how a
great actress would say the "Peace be with Burgundy!"