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The Sentimentalists: An Unfinished Comedy, a play by George Meredith |
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Scene 4 |
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_ SCENE IV DAME DRESDEN, LADY OLDLACE, VIRGINIA, WINIFRED, ARDEN, SWITHIN, OSIER
WINIFRED. Such oratory! LADY OLDLACE. A master hand. I was in a trance from the first sentence to the impressive close. OSIER. Such oratory is a whole orchestral symphony. VIRGINIA. Such command of intonation and subject! SWITHIN. That resonant voice! LADY OLDLACE. Swithin, his flow of eloquence! He launched forth! SWITHIN. Like an eagle from a cliff. OSIER. The measure of the words was like a beat of wings. SWITHIN. He makes poets of us. DAME DRESDEN. Spiral achieved his pinnacle to-day! VIRGINIA. How treacherous is our memory when we have most the longing to recall great sayings! OSIER. True, I conceive that my notes will be precious. WINIFRED. You could take notes! LADY OLDLACE. It seems a device for missing the quintessential. SWITHIN. Scraps of the body to the loss of the soul of it. We can allow that our friend performed good menial service. WINIFRED. I could not have done the thing. SWITHIN. In truth; it does remind one of the mess of pottage. LADY OLDLACE. One hardly felt one breathed. VIRGINIA. I confess it moved me to tears. SWITHIN. There is a pathos for us in the display of perfection. Such subtle contrast with our individual poverty affects us. WINIFRED. Surely there were passages of a distinct and most exquisite pathos. LADY OLDLACE. As in all great oratory! The key of it is the pathos. VIRGINIA. In great oratory, great poetry, great fiction; you try it by the pathos. All our critics agree in stipulating for the pathos. My tears were no feminine weakness, I could not be a discordant instrument. SWITHIN. I must make confession. He played on me too. OSIER. We shall be sensible for long of that vibration from the touch of a master hand. ARDEN. An accomplished player can make a toy-shop fiddle sound you a Stradivarius. DAME DRESDEN. Have you a right to a remark, Mr. Arden? What could have detained you? ARDEN. Ah, Dame. It may have been a warning that I am a discordant instrument. I do not readily vibrate. DAME DRESDEN. A discordant instrument is out of place in any civil society. You have lost what cannot be recovered. ARDEN. There are the notes. OSIER. Yes, the notes. SWITHIN. You can be satisfied with the dog's feast at the table, Mr. Arden! OSIER. Ha! VIRGINIA. Never have I seen Astraea look sublimer in her beauty than with her eyes uplifted to the impassioned speaker, reflecting every variation of his tones. ARDEN. Astraea! LADY OLDLACE. She was entranced when he spoke of woman descending from her ideal to the gross reality of man. OSIER. Yes, yes. I have the words [reads]: 'Woman is to the front of man, holding the vestal flower of a purer civilization. I see,' he says. 'the little taper in her hands transparent round the light, against rough winds.' DAME DRESDEN. And of Astraea herself, what were the words? 'Nature's dedicated widow.' SWITHIN. Vestal widow, was it not? VIRGINIA. Maiden widow, I think. DAME DRESDEN. We decide for 'dedicated.' WINIFRED. Spiral paid his most happy tribute to the memory of her late husband, the renowned Professor Towers. VIRGINIA. But his look was at dear Astraea. ARDEN. At Astraea? Why? VIRGINIA. For her sanction doubtless. ARDEN. Ha! WINIFRED. He said his pride would ever be in his being received as the successor of Professor Towers. ARDEN. Successor! SWITHIN. Guardian was it not? OSIER. Tutor. I think he said. (The three gentlemen consult Osier's notes uneasily.) DAME DRESDEN. Our professor must by this time have received in full Astraea's congratulations, and Lyra is hearing from her what it is to be too late. You will join us at the luncheon table, if you do not feel yourself a discordant instrument there, Mr. Arden? ARDEN (going to her): The allusion to knife and fork tunes my strings instantly, Dame. DAME DRESDEN. You must help me to-day, for the professor will be tired, though we dare not hint at it in his presence. No reference, ladies, to the great speech we have been privileged to hear; we have expressed our appreciation and he could hardly bear it. ARDEN. Nothing is more distasteful to the orator! VIRGINIA. As with every true genius, he is driven to feel humbly human by the exultation of him. SWITHIN. He breathes in a rarified air. OSIER. I was thrilled, I caught at passing beauties. I see that here and there I have jotted down incoherencies, lines have seduced me, so that I missed the sequence--the precious part. Ladies, permit me to rank him with Plato as to the equality of women and men. WINIFRED. It is nobly said. OSIER. And with the Stoics, in regard to celibacy. (By this time all the ladies have gone into the house.) ARDEN. Successor! Was the word successor? (ARDEN, SWITHIN, and OSIER are excitedly searching the notes when SPIRAL passes and strolls into the house. His air of self- satisfaction increases their uneasiness they follow him. ASTRAEA and LYRA come down the path.) _ |
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