Complete Short Works of George Meredith Part 70

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 be Other 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 down To instincts! When by chance I speak awhile With 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 conceal The 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 sweet You must be. And your eyes are mine: with them I see myself: unworthy to usurp The place I hold a moment. While I look I have my happiness.

ASTRAEA: You should look higher.

ARDEN: Through you to the highest. Only through you!

Through you The mark I may attain is visible, And I have strength to dream of winning it.

You are the bow that speeds the arrow: you The gla.s.s that brings the distance nigh. My world Is 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 have No fixity of feeling or of sight.

I have no courage: I can often dream Of daring: when I wake I am in dread.

I am inconstant as a b.u.t.terfly, 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 nightingale Sobs bleeding; the flowers nod; I could believe A poet, though he praised me to my face.

ARDEN: Never had poet so divine a fount To 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 shoots Light so serenely keen that in such light Fair infants, I newly criminal of earth,'

As your friend Osier says, might show some blot.

Seraphs might! More to love? Oh! these dear faults Lead you to me like troops of laughing girls With 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-place This morning?

ARDEN: I was on the way, and met Your 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 widow One of the flock, unmarked save by a brand.

He said it!--You confess it! You have learnt To 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 esteem You better did you change. And had you heard The n.o.ble words this morning from the mouth Of our professor, changed were you, or raised Above 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 liberty To him who helped me to an hour's release.

But having perfect freedom...

ARDEN: No.

ASTRAEA: Good sir, You check me?