Cordelia

the youngest daughter of King Lear in Shakespeare's tragedy of that name. Cordelia is introduced in the first scene. She does not appear again until the last part of Act IV. She speaks altogether but 115 lines. Nevertheless, throughout the entire play we are continually conscious of Cordelia. This is due, not alone to the fact that the entire action is a result of her conduct, but as well, to her character which Shakespeare's genius has "painted with few strokes yet vividly and perfectly."

The beautiful soul of Cordelia, that is little talked of by herself, and is but stingily set forth by circumstance, engrosses our feeling in scenes from whose threshold her filial piety is banished. We know what Lear is so pathetically remembering; the sisters tell us in their cruellest moments; it mingles with the midnight storm a sigh of the daughterhood that was repulsed. In the pining of the Fool we detect it. Through every wail or gust of this awful symphony of madness, ingratitude, and irony, we feel a woman's breath.-Weiss.