University of Virginia Library

XX.

Lord Alfred.
Pray, Sir, proceed
With your tale. My compatriot, what was his crime?

Stranger.
Oh, nothing! His folly was not so sublime
As to merit that term. If I blamed him just now,
It was not for the sin, but the silliness.

Lord Alfred.
How?

Stranger.
I own I hate Botany. Still, ... I admit,
Although I myself have no passion for it,
And do not understand, yet I cannot despise
The cold man of science, who walks with his eyes
All alert through a garden of flowers, and strips
The lilies' gold tongues, and the roses' red lips,
With a ruthless dissection; since he, I suppose,
Has some purpose beyond the mere mischief he does.
But the stupid and mischievous boy, that uproots
The exotics, and tramples the tender young shoots
For a boy's brutal pastime, and only because
He knows no distinction 'twixt heartsease and haws,—
One would wish, for the sake of each nurseling so nipp'd,
To catch the young rascal and have him well whipp'd!

Lord Alfred.
Some compatriot of mine, do I then understand,
With a cold Northern heart, and a rude English hand,
Has injured your Rosebud of France?

Stranger.
Sir, I know
But little, or nothing. Yet some faces show
The last act of a tragedy in their regard:
Though the first scenes be wanting, it yet is not hard
To divine, more or less, what the plot may have been,
And what sort of actors have pass'd o'er the scene.
And whenever I gaze on the face of Lucile,
With its pensive and passionless languor, I feel
That some feeling hath burnt there ... burnt out, and burnt up
Health and hope. So you feel when you gaze down the cup
Of extinguish'd volcanoes: you judge of the fire
Once there, by the ravage you see;—the desire,
By the apathy left in its wake, and that sense
Of a moral, immoveable, mute impotence.

Lord Alfred.
Humph! ... I see you have finish'd, at last, your cigar:
Can I offer another?

Stranger.
No, thank you. We are
Not two miles from Serchon.

Lord Alfred.
You know the road well?

Stranger.
I have often been over it.