ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an extract from an article published in Studies in Shakspeare: A Book of Essays, Philadelphia, 1869. In modern times we hear so much about “the suffrages of the people,” so much of the rights of all men to have a voice in public affairs. We hear so much of this description of declamation, that it is refreshing to turn to a truer philosophy, to follow the course of a purer and clearer stream of political sentiment, such as we discover in the play of Coriolanus. Having noticed the lessons nature is always silently reading to us, the article dwells upon Shakspeare’s illustration of this truth, “interwoven into man’s nature by the finger of God.” Pride is man’s besetting sin. Coriolanus’s pride is so excessive that it actually devours all the man’s adventitious and intrinsic virtues. He has no consideration—such is his pride—for any one not favored as highly as himself by fortune and by merit.
