Complete Short Works of George Meredith Part 72

ASTRAEA: Was ever so ridiculous a tale!

HOMEWARE To call the attendant fires to account Their elders forthwith sat...

ASTRAEA: Is there no prayer Will move you, uncle Homeware?

HOMEWARE: G.o.d-daughter, This gentleman for you I have proposed As husband.

ASTRAEA: Arden! we are lost.

ARDEN: Astraea!

Support him! Though I knew not his design, It plants me in mid-heaven. Would it were Not 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 s.h.i.+ne To light us on our brilliant battle day And victory

ASTRAEA: Who betrayed me!

HOMEWARE: Who betrayed?

Your voice, your eyes, your veil, your knife and fork; Your tenfold wors.h.i.+p 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 gentleman Referring 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 theirs Who presently will question me, I cling To theirs as light: and yours I deem a den Where souls can have no growth.

HOMEWARE: But when we touched The point of hand-pressings, 'twas rightly time To 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 clouds On winds, now fair, now foul, and as they please Should still attach the Fates to them.

ARDEN: She's wounded Wounded to the quick!

HOMEWARE: The quicker our success: for short Of 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 road Of 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 ashamed To love and own it.

HOMEWARE: So the symptoms show.

Rightly, young man, and proving a good breed.

To further it's a duty to mankind And 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

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

A great oration may be a sedative A male devotee is within an inch of a miracle Above Nature, I tell him, or, we shall be very much below As in all great oratory! The key of it is the pathos Back from the altar to discover that she has chained herself Cupid clipped of wing is a destructive parasite Excess of a merit is a capital offence in morality His idea of marriage is, the taking of the woman into custody I am a discordant instrument I do not readily vibrate I like him, I like him, of course, but I want to breathe I who respect the state of marriage by refusing Love and war have been compared--Both require strategy Peace, I do pray, for the husband-haunted wife Period of his life a man becomes too voraciously constant Pitiful conceit in men Rejoicing they have in their common agreement Self-wors.h.i.+p, which is often self-distrust Suspects all young men and most young women Their idol pitched before them on the floor Were I chained, For liberty I would sell liberty Woman descending from her ideal to the gross reality of man Your devotion craves an enormous exchange

MISCELLANEOUS PROSE

CONTENTS:

INTRODUCTION TO W. M. THACKERAY'S "THE FOUR GEORGES"

A PAUSE IN THE STRIFE.

CONCESSION TO THE CELT.

LESLIE STEPHEN.