"
The wheel has swung full circle: Timon is almost as weak as "Titus
Andronicus"; the pen falls from the nerveless hand. Shakespeare wrote
nothing for some time. Even the critics make a break after "Timon,"
which closes what they are pleased to call his third period; but they do
not seem to see that the break was really a breakdown in health. In
"Lear" he had brooded and raged to madness; in "Timon" he had spent
himself in futile, feeble cursings. His nerves had gone to pieces. He
was now forty-five years of age, the forces of youth and growth had left
him. He was prematurely old and feeble.
His recovery, it seems certain, was very slow, and he never again, if I
am right, regained vigorous health, I am almost certain he went down to
Stratford at this crisis and spent some time there, probably a couple of
years, trying, no doubt, to staunch the wound in his heart, and win back
again to life. The fear of madness had frightened him from brooding: he
made up his mind to let the dead past bury its dead; he would try to
forget and live sanely.
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