A pile of good things and bad things / A mingled yarn

[enevarim]

I was reading Harriet Walter's Brutus and Other Heroines: Playing Shakespeare's Roles for Women (as one does), and came upon an unexpected delight. One of my favourite speeches in Vincent and the Doctor / series 5 / the whole canon is Eleventy's remark to Amy:

AMY: … We didn't make a difference at all.

ELEVENTY: I wouldn't say that. The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. Hey. The good things don't always soften the bad things, but vice versa, the bad things don't necessarily spoil the good things or make them unimportant. And we definitely added to his pile of good things.

In her book, Walter notes:

In Act IV, Scene 3, of All's Well That Ends Well Shakespeare says:

The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together: our virtues would be proud, if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair, if they were not cherished by our virtues.

It is one of my favourite speeches. It is not at all famous and comes from the mouth of a minor character who doesn't even have a name (the First Lord).

And sure, it's a coincidence, and a commonplace, but it made me smile.