and indulgent father that he had lost the faculty by which he might
perceive himself in the wrong. Even in the midst of the storm he
declared himself more sinned against than sinning. He could believe any
amount of kindness and goodness of himself, but could imagine no
fidelity on the part of Cordelia unless she gave him the sign he
demanded.

At length he suffered many hardships; his spirit was buffeted and
broken; he lost his reason as well as his kingdom; but for the first
time his experience was identical with the experience of the men around
him, and he came to a larger conception of life. He put himself in the
place of "the poor naked wretches," and unexpectedly found healing and
comfort. He took poor Tim in his arms from a sheer desire for human
contact and animal warmth, a primitive and genuine need, through which
he suddenly had a view of the world which he had never had from his
throne, and from this moment his heart began to turn toward Cordelia.

In reading the tragedy of King Lear, Cordelia receives a full share of
our censure. Her first words are cold, and we are shocked by her lack of
tenderness. Why should she ignore her father's need for indulgence, and
be unwilling to give him what he so obviously craved? We see in the old
king "the over-mastering desire of being beloved, selfish, and yet
characteristic of the selfishness of a loving and kindly nature alone."
His eagerness produces in us a strange pity for him, and we are
impatient that his youngest and best-beloved child cannot feel this,
even in the midst of her search for truth and her newly acquired sense
of a higher duty. It seems to us a narrow conception that would break
thus abruptly with the past and would assume that her father had no part
in the new life. We want to remind her "that pity, memory, and
faithfulness are natural ties," and surely as much to be prized as is