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The Sentimentalists: An Unfinished Comedy, a play by George Meredith |
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Scene 2 |
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_ SCENE II HOMEWARE, ARDEN ARDEN. A glorious morning, sir. HOMEWARE. The sun is out, sir. ARDEN. I am happy in meeting you, Mr. Homeware. HOMEWARE. I can direct you to the ladies, Mr. Arden. You will find them up yonder avenue. ARDEN. They are listening, I believe, to an oration from the mouth of Professor Spiral. HOMEWARE. On an Alpine flower which has descended to flourish on English soil. Professor Spiral calls it Nature's 'dedicated widow.' ARDEN. 'Dedicated widow'? HOMEWARE. The reference you will observe is to my niece Astraea. ARDEN. She is dedicated to whom? HOMEWARE. To her dead husband! You see the reverse of Astraea, says the professor, in those world-infamous widows who marry again. ARDEN. Bah! HOMEWARE. Astraea, it is decided, must remain solitary, virgin cold, like the little Alpine flower. Professor Spiral has his theme. ARDEN. He will make much of it. May I venture to say that I prefer my present company? HOMEWARE. It is a singular choice. I can supply you with no weapons for the sort of stride in which young men are usually engaged. You belong to the camp you are avoiding. ARDEN. Achilles was not the worse warrior, sir, for his probation in petticoats. HOMEWARE. His deeds proclaim it. But Alexander was the better chieftain until he drank with Lais. ARDEN. No, I do not plead guilty to Bacchus. HOMEWARE. You are confessing to the madder form of drunkenness. ARDEN. How, sir, I beg? HOMEWARE. How, when a young man sees the index to himself in everything spoken! ARDEN. That might have the look. I did rightly in coming to you, sir. HOMEWARE. 'Her uncle Homeware'? ARDEN. You read through us all, sir. HOMEWARE. It may interest you to learn that you are the third of the gentlemen commissioned to consult the lady's uncle Homeware. ARDEN. The third. HOMEWARE. Yes, she is pursued. It could hardly be otherwise. Her attractions are acknowledged, and the house is not a convent. Yet, Mr. Arden, I must remind you that all of you are upon an enterprise held to be profane by the laws of this region. Can you again forget that Astraea is a widow? ARDEN. She was a wife two months; she has been a widow two years. HOMEWARE. The widow of the great and venerable Professor Towers is not to measure her widowhood by years. His, from the altar to the tomb. As it might be read, a one day's walk! ARDEN. Is she, in the pride of her youth, to be sacrificed to a whimsical feminine delicacy? HOMEWARE. You have argued it with her? ARDEN. I have presumed. HOMEWARE. And still she refused her hand! ARDEN. She commended me to you, sir. She has a sound judgement of persons. HOMEWARE. I should put it that she passes the Commissioners of Lunacy, on the ground of her being a humorous damsel. Your predecessors had also argued it with her; and they, too, discovered their enemy in a whimsical feminine delicacy. Where is the difference between you? Evidently she cannot perceive it, and I have to seek: You will have had many conversations with Astraea? ARDEN. I can say, that I am thrice the man I was before I had them. HOMEWARE. You have gained in manhood from conversations with a widow in her twenty-second year; and you want more of her. ARDEN. As much as I want more wisdom. HOMEWARE. You would call her your Muse? ARDEN. So prosaic a creature as I would not dare to call her that. HOMEWARE. You have the timely mantle of modesty, Mr. Arden. She has prepared you for some of the tests with her uncle Homeware. ARDEN. She warned me to be myself, without a spice of affectation. HOMEWARE. No harder task could be set a young man in modern days. Oh, the humorous damsel. You sketch me the dimple at her mouth. ARDEN. Frankly, sir, I wish you to know me better; and I think I can bear inspection. Astraea sent me to hear the reasons why she refuses me a hearing. HOMEWARE. Her reason, I repeat, is this; to her idea, a second wedlock is unholy. Further, it passes me to explain. The young lady lands us where we were at the beginning; such must have been her humorous intention. ARDEN. What can I do? HOMEWARE. Love and war have been compared. Both require strategy and tactics, according to my recollection of the campaign. ARDEN. I will take to heart what you say, sir. HOMEWARE. Take it to head. There must be occasional descent of lovers' heads from the clouds. And Professor Spiral,--But here we have a belated breeze of skirts. (The reference is to the arrival of LYRA, breathless.) _ |
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