University of Virginia Library

Scene III.

—At the Hotel.
Sp.
Come, then,
And with my aid go into good society.
Life little loves, 'tis true, this peevish piety;
E'en they with whom it thinks to be securest—
Your most religious, delicatest, purest—
Discern, and show as pious people can
Their feeling that you are not quite a man.
Still the thing has its place; and, with sagacity,
Much might be done by one of your capacity.
A virtuous attachment formed judiciously
Would come, one sees, uncommonly propitiously:
Turn you but your affections the right way,
And what mayn't happen none of us can say;
For, in despite of devils and of mothers,
Your good young men make catches, too, like others.

Di.
To herd with people that one owns no care for;
Friend it with strangers that one sees but once;
To drain the heart with endless complaisance;
To warp the unfinished diction on the lip,
And twist one's mouth to counterfeit; enforce
Reluctant looks to falsehood; base-alloy
The ingenuous golden frankness of the past;
To calculate and plot; be rough and smooth,
Forward and silent, deferential, cool,
Not by one's humour, which is the safe truth,
But on consideration.

Sp.
That is, act
On a dispassionate judgment of the fact;
Look all the data fairly in the face,
And rule your judgment simply by the case.

Di.
On vile consideration. At the best,
With pallid hotbed courtesies to forestall
The green and vernal spontaneity,
And waste the priceless moments of the man
In regulating manner. Whether these things
Be right, I do not know: I only know 'tis
To lose one's youth too early. Oh, not yet—
Not yet I make the sacrifice.

Sp.
Du tout!
To give up nature's just what would not do.
By all means keep your sweet ingenuous graces,
And use them at the proper times and places.
For work, for play, for business, talk and love,
I own as wisdom truly from above,
That scripture of the serpent and the dove;
Nor's aught so perfect for the world's affairs
As the old parable of wheat and tares;
What we all love is good touched up with evil—
Religion's self must have a spice of devil.

Di.
Let it be enough,
That in our needful mixture with the world,
On each new morning with the rising sun,
Our rising heart, fresh from the seas of sleep,
Scarce o'er the level lifts his purer orb
Ere lost and sullied with polluting smoke—
A noon-day coppery disk. Lo, scarce come forth,
Some vagrant miscreant meets, and with a look
Transmutes me his, and for a whole sick day
Lepers me.

Sp.
Just the one thing, I assure you,
From which good company can't but secure you.
About the individual's not so clear,
But who can doubt the general atmosphere?

Di.
Ay truly, who at first? but in a while—

Sp.
O dear, this o'er-discernment makes me smile.
You don't pretend to tell me you can see
Without one touch of melting sympathy
Those lovely, stately flowers that fill with bloom
The brilliant season's gay parterre-like room,
Moving serene yet swiftly through the dances;
Those graceful forms and perfect countenances,
Whose every fold and line in all their dresses
Something refined and exquisite expresses.
To see them smile and hear them talk so sweetly,
In me destroys all lower thoughts completely;
I really seem, without exaggeration,
To experience the true regeneration.
One's own dress, too—one's manner, what one's doing
And saying, all assist to one's renewing.
I love to see, in these their fitting places,
The bows, the forms, and all you call grimaces.
I heartily could wish we'd kept some more of them,
However much we talk about the bore of them.
Fact is, your awkward parvenus are shy at it,
Afraid to look like waiters if they try at it.
'Tis sad to what democracy is leading—
Give me your Eighteenth Century for high breeding.
Though I can put up gladly with the present,
And quite can think our modern parties pleasant.
One shouldn't analyse the thing too nearly:
The main effect is admirable clearly.
‘Good manners,’ said our great-aunts, ‘next to piety:’
And so, my friend, hurrah for good society!