final and total result is one in which pity and terror, carried perhaps to the extreme limits of art, are so blended with a sense of law and beauty that we feel at last, not depression and much less despair, but a consciousness of greatness in pain, and of solemnity in the mystery we cannot fathom. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 123: I leave undiscussed the position of _King Lear_ in relation to the 'comedies' of _Measure for Measure_, _Troilus and Cressida_ and _All's Well_.] [Footnote 124: See Note R.] [Footnote 125: On some of the points mentioned in this paragraph see Note S.] [Footnote 126: '_Kent._ I thought the king had more affected the Duke of Albany than Cornwall. _Glos._ It did always seem so to us: but now, in the division of the kingdom, it appears not which of the dukes he values most.' For (Gloster goes on to say) their shares are exactly equal in value. And if the shares of the two elder daughters are fixed, obviously that of the third is so too.] [Footnote 127: I loved her most, and thought to set my rest On her kind nursery.] [Footnote 128: It is to Lear's altered plan that Kent applies these words.] [Footnote 129: There is talk of a war between Goneril and Regan within a fortnight of the division of the kingdom (II. i. 11 f.).] [Footnote 130: I mean that no sufficiently clear reason is supplied for Edmund's delay in attempting to save Cordelia and Lear. The matter stands thus. Edmund, after the defeat of the opposing army, sends Lear and Cordelia to prison. Then, in accordance with a plan agreed on between himself and Goneril, he despatches a captain with secret orders to put them both to death _instantly_ (V. iii. 26-37, 244, 252). He then has to fight with the disguised Edgar. He is mortally wounded, and, as he lies dying, he says to Edgar (at line 162, _more than a hundred lines_ after he gave that commission to the captain): What you have charged me with, that have I done; And more, much more; the time will bring it out; 'Tis past, and so am I.