"Do not quote my books to me, either early or late. You ask me for advice, and I give it according to my ability. The time may come too, Mr. Thwaite,"—and this he said laughing,—"when you also will be less hot in your abhorrence of a nobility than you are now."
"Never!"
"Ah;—'tis so that young men always make assurances to themselves of their own present wisdom."
"You think then that I should give her up entirely?"
"I would leave her to herself, and to her mother,—and to this young lord, if he be her lover."
"But if she loves me! Oh, sir, she did love me once. If she loves me, should I leave her to think, as time goes on, that I have forgotten her? What chance can she have if I do not interfere to let her know that I am true to her?"
"She will have the chance of becoming Lady Lovel, and of loving her husband."
"Then, sir, you do not believe in vows of love?"
"How am I to answer that?" said the poet. "Surely I do believe in vows of love. I have written much of love, and have ever meant to write the truth, as I knew it, or thought that I knew it. But the love of which we poets sing is not the love of the outer world. It is more ecstatic, but far less serviceable. It is the picture of that which exists, but grand with imaginary attributes, as are the portraits of ladies painted by artists who have thought rather of their art than of their models. We tell of a constancy in love which is hardly compatible with the usages of this as yet imperfect world. Look abroad, and see whether girls do not love twice, and young men thrice. They come together, and rub their feathers like birds, and fancy that each has found in the other an eternity of weal or woe. Then come the causes of their parting. Their fathers perhaps are Capulets and Montagues, but their children, God be thanked, are not Romeos and Juliets. Or money does not serve, or distance intervenes, or simply a new face has the poor merit of novelty. The constancy of which the poets sing is the unreal,—I may almost say the unnecessary,—constancy of a Juliet. The constancy on which our nature should pride itself is that of an Imogen. You read Shakespeare, I hope, Mr. Thwaite."
"I know the plays you quote, sir. Imogen was a king's daughter, and married a simple gentleman."