“So to lie and dream? But dreams must wake to reality, when childhood ends, as with the dropping of the flower comes the fruit. Are you prepared?”
“For what?”
“For what’s to come?”
“Tell me what is to come.”
“God knows! Only, for what it cannot be, think of all you must forego—name, honour, luxury—an empire.”
“I thought them all shadows. Are they the realities?”
“Think, before you decide. The whole world against a sentiment.”
“Is it only that, indeed, to you?”
“Ah! to me! But I lose nothing and gain all.”
“An empty gain, when I shall have lost my all.”