Come, your hovel. 
Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart
That’s sorry yet for thee.

But on the way he has broken down and has been weeping (III. iv. 17), and now he resists Kent’s efforts to persuade him to enter.  He does not feel the storm: 

                          when the mind’s free

The body’s delicate:  the tempest in my mind
Doth from my senses take all feeling else
Save what beats there: 

and the thoughts that will drive him mad are burning in his brain: 

                          Filial ingratitude! 

Is it not as this mouth should tear this hand
For lifting food to’t?  But I will punish home. 
No, I will weep no more.  In such a night
To shut me out!  Pour on; I will endure. 
In such a night as this!  O Regan, Goneril! 
Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all,—­
O, that way madness lies; let me shun that;
No more of that.

And then suddenly, as he controls himself, the blessed spirit of kindness breathes on him ‘like a meadow gale of spring,’ and he turns gently to Kent: 

     Prithee, go in thyself; seek thine own ease: 
     This tempest will not give me leave to ponder
     On things would hurt me more.  But I’ll go in. 
     In, boy; go first.  You houseless poverty—­
     Nay, get thee in.  I’ll pray, and then I’ll sleep.

But his prayer is not for himself.

     Poor naked wretches, wheresoe’er you are,

it begins, and I need not quote more.  This is one of those passages which make one worship Shakespeare.[160]

Much has been written on the representation of insanity in King Lear, and I will confine myself to one or two points which may have escaped notice.  The most obvious symptom of Lear’s insanity, especially in its first stages, is of course the domination of a fixed idea.  Whatever presents itself to his senses, is seized on by this idea and compelled to express it; as for example in those words, already quoted, which first show that his mind has actually given way: 

                            Hast thou given all
     To thy two daughters?  And art thou come to this?[161]

But it is remarkable that what we have here is only, in an exaggerated and perverted form, the very same action of imagination that, just before the breakdown of reason, produced those sublime appeals: 

                    O heavens,

If you do love old men, if your sweet sway
Allow obedience, if yourselves are old,
Make it your cause;

and: 

     Rumble thy bellyful!  Spit, fire! spout, rain! 
     Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters: 
     I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness;
     I never gave you kingdom, call’d you children,
     You owe me no subscription: