He cannot help me, SIR PHILIP. A woman can; she knows a woman's mind, Who say so? They LADY ANNE. Who do not know her! Hit her heart, you are sure For three years have you been my fair acquaintance; And if I err not, all that lapse of time You have enjoy'd good health! So I should think!-You have always slept o' nights? SIR PHILIP. From laying down my head to lifting it! LADY ANNE. Sound sleep?—No trouble in the shape of dreams? LADY ANNE. You would like to know for what? You are deep, Show her to court and town-go everywhere, It is his vanity that loves, not he! (aside.)" From these specimens, the reader will understand somewhat of the psychological analysis which pervades this exceedingly beautiful poem. But the crowning specimen of this kind is in the last act, when the failure of their mutual schemes forces both the "old maids" to selfexamination : "(LADY BLANCHE sits disconsolately. Enter LADY ANNE, who draws a chair beside her, and likewise sits.) Well, Blanche. LADY ANNE. LADY BLANCHE. Well, Anne. You have quarrell'd with Sir Philip. LADY ANNE. And you have lost your pains with Colonel Blount. I doubt I am. Are I know I am. you in love, dear Blanche? LADY BLANCHE. What could possess you, Anne, To set yourself up at an age like yours For an old maid? Would you be wiser than Your mother was? LADY ANNE. What could possess you, Anne, To give me credit for't, and you yourself Who led a life of single blessedness, And with her will? You did forget your mother LADY BLANCHE. you think My mother was a wife at twenty-four. Or you a pretty mason with a mallet You could not be a doctor, nor a surgeon. LADY ANNE. Nor you a lawyer-would you wear the wig? LADY BLANCHE. I'd starve first. You would never make a sailor. That love could be constrain'd? That one could love Against one's will? To love another? That one could spite one's self Love and hate at once? I could kill Colonel Blount-could hack him up! You loved the 'prentice boy!—you thought not that LADY BLANCHE. Well! make confession to him. Make my will LADY BLANChe. The fire is out! And die. He loves no more. Vanish'd!-the very embers blown away! The memory even of my features gone, And mock'd as you would think, extinguishing! And blazes to another deity! There is the altar burn'd before for me, But to another does the incense rise. There is the temple where I once was shrined, But to another's image sacred now; And mine profaned, unbased, cast down, cast out, Never to know its worshipper again! To be sure I am, and like to be! ne'er woman more Deceived themselves than we did! To believe It rested with ourselves to love or not; As we at once could have and lack a heart; |