two
lines. And do we not taste a dash of benignant irony in the implied
repugnance between the spirit of the man and the stuff of his present
undertaking? The idea of a bookworm riding the whirlwind of war! The
thing is most like Brutus; but how out of his element, how unsphered
from his right place, it shows him! There is a touch of drollery in the
contrast, which the richest steeping of poetry does not disguise. And
the irony is all the more delectable for being so remote and
unpronounced; like one of those choice arrangements in the background of
a painting, which, without attracting conscious notice, give a zest and
relish to what stands in front. The scene, whether for charm of
sentiment or felicity of conception, is one of the finest in
Shakespeare.

BRUTUS AND CASSIUS

The characters of Brutus and Cassius are nicely discriminated, scarce a
word falling from either but what smacks of the man. Cassius is much the
better conspirator, but much the worse man; and the better in that
because the worse in this. For Brutus engages in the conspiracy on
grounds of abstract and ideal justice; while Cassius holds it both a
wrong and a blunder to go about such a thing without making success his
first care. This, accordingly, is what he works for, being reckless of
all other considerations in his choice and use of means. Withal he is
more impulsive and quick than Brutus, because less under the
self-discipline of moral principle. His motives, too, are of a much more
mixed and various quality, because his habits of thinking and acting
have grown by the measures of experience; he studies to understand men
as they are; Brutus, as he thinks they ought to be. Hence, in every case
where Brutus crosses him, Brutus is wrong, and he is right,--right, that
is, if success be their aim. Cassius judges, and surely rightly, that
the end should give law to the means; and that "the honorable men whose
daggers have stabb'd Caesar" should not be hampered much with
conscientious scruples.

Still Brutus overawes him by his moral energy and elevation of
character, and by the open-faced rectitude and purity of his principles.
Brutus has no thoughts or aims that he is afraid or ashamed to avow;
Cassius has many which he would fain hide even from himself. And he
catches a sort of inspiration and is raised above himself by contact
with Brutus. And Cassius, moreover, acts very much from personal hatred
of Caesar, as remembering how, not long before