scenes well, and Caroline, taking the book out of
his hand, read these parts for him. From her he seemed to enjoy them, and indeed
she gave them with a spirit no one could have expected of her, with a pithy
expression with which she seemed gifted on the spot, and for that brief moment
only. It may be remarked, in passing, that the general character of her
conversation that evening, whether serious or sprightly, grave or gay, was as of
something untaught, unstudied, intuitive, fitful; when once gone, no more to be
reproduced as it had been, than the glancing ray of the meteor, than the tints
of the dew-gem, than the colour or form of the sun-set cloud, than the fleeting
and glittering ripple varying the flow of a rivulet.
    Coriolanus in glory; Coriolanus in disaster; Coriolanus banished, followed
like giant-shades one after the other. Before the vision of the banished man,
Moore's spirit seemed to pause. He stood on the hearth of Aufidius's hall,
facing the image of greatness fallen, but greater than ever in that low estate.
He saw »the grim appearance,« the dark face »bearing command in it,« »the noble
vessel with its tackle torn.« With the revenge of Caius Marcius, Moore perfectly
sympathized; he was not scandalized by it; and again Caroline whispered, »There
I see another glimpse of brotherhood in error.«
    The march on Rome, the mother's supplication, the long resistance, the final
yielding of bad passions to good, which ever must be the case in a nature worthy
the epithet of noble, the rage of Aufidius at what he considered his ally's
weakness, the death of Coriolanus, the final sorrow of his great enemy; all
scenes made of condensed truth & strength, came on in succession, and
carried with them in their deep, fast flow, the heart and mind of reader and
listener.
    »Now, have you felt Shakspeare?« asked Caroline, some ten minutes after her
cousin had closed the book.
    »I think so.«
    »And have you felt anything in Coriolanus like you?«
    »Perhaps I have.«
    »Was he not faulty as well as great?«
    Moore nodded. »And what was his fault? What made him hated by the citizens?
What caused him to be banished by his countrymen?«
    »What do you think it was?«
    »I ask again -
 
Whether was it pride,
Which out of daily fortune ever taints