". . . She had
A heart—how shall I say?—too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere."
Even now it does not seem that the listener is in full possession and accord; more stooping, then, is necessary, for the hint must be clearly conveyed:
"Sir, 'twas all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the west,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace—all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. . . ."
We, like the envoy, sit in mute amazement and repulsion, listening to the Duke, looking at the Duchess. We can see the quivering, glad, tender creature as though we also were at gaze on Frà Pandolf's picture. . . . I call this piece a wonder, now! Scarce one of the monologues is so packed with significance; yet it is by far the most lucid, the most "simple"—even the rhymes are managed with such consummate art that they are, as Mr. Arthur Symons has said, "scarcely appreciable." Two lives are summed up in fifty-six lines. First, the ghastly Duke's; then, hers—but hers, indeed, is finally gathered into one. . . . Everything that came to her was transmuted into her own dearness—even his favour at her breast. We can figure to ourselves the giving of that "favour"—the high proprietary air, the loftily anticipated gratitude: Sir Willoughby Patterne by intelligent anticipation. But then, though the approving speech and blush were duly paid, would come the fool with his bough of cherries—and speech and blush were given again! Absurder still, the spot of joy would light for the sunset, the white mule . . .
"Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling?"
Even if he had been able to make clear to "such an one" the crime of ranking his gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name "with anybody's gift"—even if he had plainly said that this or that in her "disgusted" him, and she had allowed herself to be thus lessoned (but she might not have allowed it; she might have set her wits to his, forsooth, and made excuse) . . . even so (this must be impressed upon the envoy), it would have meant some stooping, and the Duke "chooses never to stoop."
Still the envoy listens, with a thought of his own, perhaps, for the next Duchess! . . . More and more raptly he gazes; his eyes are glued upon that "pictured countenance"; and still the peevish voice is sounding in his ear—
". . . Oh, Sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together."
There falls a curious, throbbing silence. The envoy still sits gazing. There she stands, looking as if she were alive. . . . And almost he starts to hear the voice echo his thought, but with so different a meaning—