What kind of a woman is this one who sallies forth to turn a man into a husband? Shakspeare endows her with natural traits so positive that they claim no repose, are contented with no proficiency, and continually project improvement. "Her dispositions she inherits, which make fair gifts fairer; for where an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities, there commendations go with pity, they are virtues and traitors too; in her they are the better for their simpleness; she derives her honesty, and achieves her goodness." That is to say, not content with being well-born into an amiable disposition, she meditates the career of character. Such a mind allied with purity justifies itself, and can venture behavior which a weak person would be wrecked upon; in whom, therefore, the attempt would be culpable. Conventional manners are the haven within whose break-water the weak ride at safety, where nothing tests and strains their shallow build. When Helena goes to court on the pretext that the King's malady can be cured by a prescription that her dying father confided to her, the King, who prefers male doctors, puts her off and under-values her capacity; but she persists with a sincerity so sparkling, a tone so prompt and clear, a will so hard to repulse, that the King perceives no ordinary woman:--
"Methinks, in thee some blessed spirit doth speak His powerful sound within an organ weak: And what impossibility would slay In common sense, sense saves another way. Thy life is dear; for all that life can rate Worth name of life, in thee hath estimate, Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, honor, all That happiness and prime can happy call."
So this ennobled daughter of a doctor aspires to wed the noble son of a countess. Shakspeare attacks the social etiquette of his own age and of all secluded circles. Helena should be filled with grief for the father lately dead; but her "imagination carries no favor in it, but only Bertram's."
"I am undone: there is no living, none, If Bertram be away. It were all one, That I should love a bright, particular star, And think to wed it, he is so above me: In his bright radiance and collateral light Must I be comforted, not in his sphere."
Then she gives a touch of woman's petulance at being so ensnared:--