"The king has killed his heart." Here is the point in Falstaff's
nature so strangely overlooked by the man of all men who we should have
said must be the first to seize and to appreciate it. It is as grievous
as it is inexplicable that the Shakespeare of France--the most infinite
in compassion, in "conscience and tender heart," of all great poets in
all ages and all nations of the world--should have missed the deep
tenderness of this supreme and subtlest touch in the work of the greatest
among his fellows. Again, with anything but "damnable" iteration, does
Shakespeare revert to it before the close of this very scene. Even
Pistol and Nym can see that what now ails their old master is no such
ailment as in his prosperous days was but too liable to "play the rogue
with his great toe." "The king hath run bad humours on the knight": "his
heart is fracted, and corroborate." And it is not thus merely through
the eclipse of that brief mirage, that fair prospect "of Africa, and
golden joys," in view of which he was ready to "take any man's horses."
This it is that distinguishes Falstaff from Panurge; that lifts him at
least to the moral level of Sancho Panza.
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