"
After the first two lines, which Hotspur might have spoken, we have the
sophistry of the thinker poetically expressed, and not one word from the
hot, high-couraged soldier. Indeed, in the last four lines from the
bookish "we read" to the end, we have the gentle poet in love with
desperate extremities. The passage must be compared with Othello's--
"Here is my journey's end, here is my butt,
And very sea-mark of my utmost sail."
But at length when Worcester adds fear to danger Hotspur half finds
himself:
"
Hot, You strain too far.
I rather of his absence make this use:--
It lends a lustre, and more great opinion,
A larger dare to our great enterprise,
Than if the earl were here; for men must think,
If we, without his help can make a head
To push against the kingdom; with his help
We shall o'erturn it topsy-turvy down.--
Yet all goes well, yet all our joints are whole."
And this is all. The scene is designed, the situation constructed to
show us Hotspur's courage: here, if anywhere, the hot blood should
surprise us and make of danger the springboard of leaping hardihood.
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