The Sentimentalists

ASTRAEA: Professor Spiral is a thinker; he is a sage. He gives women their due.

LYRA: And he is a bachelor too—or consequently.

ASTRAEA: If you like you may be as playful with me as the Lyra of our maiden days used to be. My dear, my dear, how glad I am to have you here! You remind me that I once had a heart. It will beat again with you beside me, and I shall look to you for protection. A novel request from me. From annoyance, I mean. It has entirely altered my character. Sometimes I am afraid to think of what I was, lest I should suddenly romp, and perform pirouettes and cry 'Carnation!' There is the bell. We must not be late when the professor condescends to sit for meals.

LYRA: That rings healthily in the professor.

ASTRAEA: Arm in arm, my Lyra.

LYRA: No Pluriel yet!

(They enter the house, and the time changes to evening of the same day. The scene is still the garden.)

SCENE VI

ASTRAEA, ARDEN

ASTRAEA: Pardon me if I do not hear you well.

ARDEN: I will not even think you barbarous.

ASTRAEA: I am. I am the object of the chase.

ARDEN: The huntsman draws the wood, then, and not you.

ASTRAEA:

At any instant I am forced to run,Or turn in my defence: how can I beOther than barbarous? You are the cause.

ARDEN: No: heaven that made you beautiful's the cause.

ASTRAEA:

Say, earth, that gave you instincts. Bring me downTo instincts! When by chance I speak awhileWith our professor, you appear in haste,Full cry to sight again the missing hare.Away ideas! All that's divinest flies!I have to bear in mind how young you are.

ARDEN:

You have only to look up to me four years,Instead of forty!

ASTRAEA: Sir?

ARDEN

There's my misfortune!And worse that, young, I love as a young man.Could I but quench the fire, I might concealThe youthfulness offending you so much.

ASTRAEA: I wish you would. I wish it earnestly.

ARDEN: Impossible. I burn.

ASTRAEA: You should not burn.

ARDEN

'Tis more than I. 'Tis fire. It masters will.You would not say I should not' if you knew fire.It seizes. It devours.

ASTRAEA: Dry wood.

ARDEN:

Cold wit!How cold you can be! But be cold, for sweetYou must be. And your eyes are mine: with themI see myself: unworthy to usurpThe place I hold a moment. While I lookI have my happiness.

ASTRAEA: You should look higher.

ARDEN:

Through you to the highest. Only through you!Through youThe mark I may attain is visible,And I have strength to dream of winning it.You are the bow that speeds the arrow: youThe glass that brings the distance nigh. My worldIs luminous through you, pure heavenly,But hangs upon the rose's outer leaf,Not next her heart. Astraea! my own beloved!

ASTRAEA: We may be excellent friends. And I have faults.

ARDEN: Name them: I am hungering for more to love.

ASTRAEA:

I waver very constantly: I haveNo fixity of feeling or of sight.I have no courage: I can often dreamOf daring: when I wake I am in dread.I am inconstant as a butterfly,And shallow as a brook with little fish!Strange little fish, that tempt the small boy's net,But at a touch straight dive! I am any one's,And no one's! I am vain.Praise of my beauty lodges in my ears.The lark reels up with it; the nightingaleSobs bleeding; the flowers nod; I could believeA poet, though he praised me to my face.

ARDEN:

Never had poet so divine a fountTo drink of!

ASTRAEA:

Have I given you more to love

ARDEN:

More! You have given me your inner mind,Where conscience in the robes of Justice shootsLight so serenely keen that in such lightFair infants, I newly criminal of earth,'As your friend Osier says, might show some blot.Seraphs might! More to love? Oh! these dear faultsLead you to me like troops of laughing girlsWith garlands. All the fear is, that you trifle,Feigning them.

ASTRAEA:

For what purpose?

ARDEN:

Can I guess?

ASTRAEA:

I think 'tis you who have the trifler's note.My hearing is acute, and when you speak,Two voices ring, though you speak fervidly.Your Osier quotation jars. Beware!Why were you absent from our meeting-placeThis morning?

ARDEN:

I was on the way, and metYour uncle Homeware

ASTRAEA: Ah!

ARDEN: He loves you.

ASTRAEA:

He loves me: he has never understood.He loves me as a creature of the flock;A little whiter than some others.Yes; He loves me, as men love; not to uplift;Not to have faith in; not to spiritualize.For him I am a woman and a widowOne of the flock, unmarked save by a brand.He said it!—You confess it! You have learntTo share his error, erring fatally.

ARDEN: By whose advice went I to him?

ASTRAEA:

By whose?Pursuit that seemed incessant: persecution.Besides, I have changed since then: I change; I change;It is too true I change. I could esteemYou better did you change. And had you heardThe noble words this morning from the mouthOf our professor, changed were you, or raisedAbove love-thoughts, love-talk, and flame and flutter,High as eternal snows. What said he else,My uncle Homeware?

ARDEN:

That you were not free:And that he counselled us to use our wits.

ASTRAEA:

But I am free I free to be ever free!My freedom keeps me free! He counselled us?I am not one in a conspiracy.I scheme no discord with my present life.Who does, I cannot look on as my friend.Not free? You know me little. Were I chained,For liberty I would sell libertyTo him who helped me to an hour's release.But having perfect freedom . . .

ARDEN: No.

ASTRAEA:

Good sir,You check me?

ARDEN: Perfect freedom?

ASTRAEA: Perfect!

ARDEN: No!

ASTRAEA: Am I awake? What blinds me?

ARDEN:

FilamentsThe slenderest ever woven about a brainFrom the brain's mists, by the little sprite calledFancy.A breath would scatter them; but that one breathMust come of animation. When the heartIs as, a frozen sea the brain spins webs.

ASTRAEA:

'Tis very singular!I understand.You translate cleverly. I hear in verseMy uncle Homeware's prose. He has these notions.Old men presume to read us.

ARDEN:

Young men may.You gaze on an ideal reflecting youNeed I say beautiful? Yet it reflectsLess beauty than the lady whom I loveBreathes, radiates. Look on yourself in me.What harm in gazing? You are this flowerYou are that spirit. But the spirit fedWith substance of the flower takes all its bloom!And where in spirits is the bloom of the flower?

ASTRAEA:

'Tis very singular. You have a toneQuite changed.

ARDEN:

You wished a change. To show you, howI read you . . .

ASTRAEA:

Oh! no, no. It means dissection.I never heard of reading characterThat did not mean dissection. Spare me that.I am wilful, violent, capricious, weak,Wound in a web of my own spinning-wheel,A star-gazer, a riband in the wind . . .

ARDEN:

A banner in the wind! and me you lead,And shall! At least, I follow till I win.

ASTRAEA:

Forbear, I do beseech you.

ARDEN:

I have hadYour hand in mine.

ASTRAEA:

Once.

ARDEN:

Once!Once! 'twas; once, was the heart alive,Leaping to break the ice. Oh! once, was ayeThat laughed at frosty May like spring's return.Say you are terrorized: you dare not melt.You like me; you might love me; but to dare,Tasks more than courage. Veneration, friends,Self-worship, which is often self-distrust,Bar the good way to you, and make a dreamA fortress and a prison.

ASTRAEA:

Changed! you have changedIndeed. When you so boldly seized my handIt seemed a boyish freak, done boyishly.I wondered at Professor Spiral's choiceOf you for an example, and our hope.Now you grow dangerous. You must have thought,And some things true you speak-save 'terrorized.'It may be flattering to sweet self-loveTo deem me terrorized.—'Tis my own soul,My heart, my mind, all that I hold most sacred,Not fear of others, bids me walk aloof.Who terrorizes me? Who could? Friends? Never!The world? as little. Terrorized!

ARDEN:

Forgive me.

ASTRAEA:

I might reply, Respect me. If I loved,If I could be so faithless as to love,Think you I would not rather noise abroadMy shame for penitence than let friends dwellDeluded by an image of one vowedTo superhuman, who the common mockOf things too human has at heart become.

ARDEN:

You would declare your love?

ASTRAEA:

I said, my shame.The woman that's the widow is ensnared,Caught in the toils! away with widows!—Oh!I hear men shouting it.

ARDEN:

But shame there's noneFor me in loving: therefore I may takeYour friends to witness? tell them that my prideIs in the love of you?

ASTRAEA:

'Twill soon bringThe silence that should be between us two,And sooner give me peace.

ARDEN:

And you consent?

ASTRAEA:

For the sake of peace and silence I consent,You should be warned that you will cruellyDisturb them. But 'tis best. You should be warnedYour pleading will be hopeless. But 'tis best.You have my full consent. Weigh well your acts,You cannot rest where you have cast this boltLay that to heart, and you are cherished, prized,Among them: they are estimable ladies,Warmest of friends; though you may think they soarToo loftily for your measure of strict sense(And as my uncle Homeware's pupil, sir,In worldliness, you do), just minds they have:Once know them, and your banishment will fret.I would not run such risks. You will offend,Go near to outrage them; and perturbateAs they have not deserved of you. But I,Considering I am nothing in the scalesYou balance, quite and of necessityConsent. When you have weighed it, let me hear.My uncle Homeware steps this way in haste.We have been talking long, and in full view !

SCENE VII

ASTRAEA, ARDEN, HOMEWARE

HOMEWARE:

Astraea, child! You, Arden, stand aside.Ay, if she were a maid you might speak first,But being a widow she must find her tongue.Astraea, they await you. State the factAs soon as you are questioned, fearlessly.Open the battle with artillery.

ASTRAEA:

What is the matter, uncle Homeware?

HOMEWARE (playing fox):

What?Why, we have watched your nice preliminariesFrom the windows half the evening. Now run in.Their patience has run out, and, as I said,Unlimber and deliver fire at once.Your aunts Virginia and Winifred,With Lady Oldlace, are the senators,The Dame for Dogs. They wear terrific brows,But be not you affrighted, my sweet chick,And tell them uncle Homeware backs your choice,By lawyer and by priests! by altar, fount,And testament!

ASTRAEA:

My choice! what have I chosen?

HOMEWARE:

She asks? You hear her, Arden?—what and whom!

ARDEN:

Surely, sir! . . . heavens! have you . . .

HOMEWARE:

Surely the old fox,In all I have read, is wiser than the young:And if there is a game for fox to play,Old fox plays cunningest.

ASTRAEA:

Why fox? Oh! uncle,You make my heart beat with your mystery;I never did love riddles. Why sit theyAwaiting me, and looking terrible?

HOMEWARE:

It is reported of an ancient folkWhich worshipped idols, that upon a dayTheir idol pitched before them on the floor

ASTRAEA:

Was ever so ridiculous a tale!

HOMEWARE

To call the attendant fires to accountTheir elders forthwith sat . . .

ASTRAEA:

Is there no prayerWill move you, uncle Homeware?

HOMEWARE:

God-daughter,This gentleman for you I have proposedAs husband.

ASTRAEA:

Arden! we are lost.

ARDEN:

Astraea!Support him! Though I knew not his design,It plants me in mid-heaven. Would it wereNot you, but I to bear the shock. My love!We lost, you cry; you join me with you lost!The truth leaps from your heart: and let it shineTo light us on our brilliant battle dayAnd victory

ASTRAEA:

Who betrayed me!

HOMEWARE:

Who betrayed?Your voice, your eyes, your veil, your knife and fork;Your tenfold worship of your widowhood;As he who sees he must yield up the flag,Hugs it oath-swearingly! straw-drowningly.To be reasonable: you sent this gentlemanReferring him to me . . . .

ASTRAEA:

And that is false.All's false. You have conspired. I am disgraced.But you will learn you have judged erroneously.I am not the frail creature you conceive.Between your vision of life's aim, and theirsWho presently will question me, I clingTo theirs as light: and yours I deem a denWhere souls can have no growth.

HOMEWARE:

But when we touchedThe point of hand-pressings, 'twas rightly timeTo think of wedding ties?

ASTRAEA:

Arden, adieu!

(She rushes into house.)

SCENE VIII

ARDEN, HOMEWARE

ARDEN:

Adieu! she said. With her that word is final.

HOMEWARE:

Strange! how young people blowing words like cloudsOn winds, now fair, now foul, and as they pleaseShould still attach the Fates to them.

ARDEN:

She's woundedWounded to the quick!

HOMEWARE:

The quicker our success: for shortOf that, these dames, who feel for everything,Feel nothing.

ARDEN:

Your intention has been kind,Dear sir, but you have ruined me.

HOMEWARE:

Good-night. (Going.)

ARDEN:

Yet she said, we are lost, in her surprise.

HOMEWARE:

Good morning. (Returning.)

ARDEN:

I suppose that I am bound(If I could see for what I should be glad!)To thank you, sir.

HOMEWARE:

Look hard but give no thanks.

I found my girl descending on the roadOf breakneck coquetry, and barred her way.Either she leaps the bar, or she must back.That means she marries you, or says good-bye.(Going again.)

ARDEN:

Now she's among them. (Looking at window.)

HOMEWARE:

Now she sees her mind.

ARDEN:

It is my destiny she now decides!

HOMEWARE:

There's now suspense on earth and round the spheres.

ARDEN:

She's mine now: mine! or I am doomed to go.

HOMEWARE:

The marriage ring, or the portmanteau now!

ARDEN:

Laugh as you like, air! I am not ashamedTo love and own it.

HOMEWARE:

So the symptoms show.Rightly, young man, and proving a good breed.To further it's a duty to mankindAnd I have lent my push, But recollect:Old Ilion was not conquered in a day.(He enters house.)

ARDEN:

Ten years! If I may win her at the end!

CURTAIN