“Something thou dost want, O queen!
(As the gold doth ask alloy,)
Tears,—amidst thy laughter seen,
Pity,—mingling with the joy.”
Such a conjunction as the courtier records of Cordelia in “King
Lear”—sunshine and rain at once: “her smiles and tears were like a better
day: those happy smiles that played on her ripe lip, seemed not to know
what guests were in her eyes:” “in brief, sorrow would be a rarity most
beloved, if all could so become it.” Nothing, we often hear it said, is
so tedious as uniformity; and under the bright sky of Italy one sometimes
sighs for a cloud. “A gay writer, who,” says Horace Walpole, “should only
express satisfaction without variety, would soon be nauseous.” Johnson’s
Papilius winds up his confession, in the “Rambler,” with a whine on the
melancholy necessity of supporting that character by study, which he
gained by levity; having learned too late that gaiety must be recommended
by higher qualities, and that mirth can never please long but as the
efflorescence of a mind loved for its luxuriance, but esteemed for its
usefulness. There must be fruitage as well as blossomy “efflorescence;”
as Cowper is fain to enforce, when in the closing lines of the “Task,”
he records how he once, when called to dress a sofa with the flowers of
verse, played awhile with that light task, obedient to the fair:—
... “but soon, to please her more,
Whom flowers alone I knew would little please,
Let fall the unfinished wreath, and roved for fruit.”