“When I think, Lionel, that you and I were on the eve of repeating that same lamentable story—”
“Enough of this horrid past, my beautiful Una; let us forget that it ever existed, and let us think of the present, of you, and of our future.”
They had reached Hyde Park Corner. Gwendolen gave a circuitous glance on the scene that surrounded them, and remarked that the Duke of Wellington’s statue had disappeared.
“Where has the statue gone to, Lion?”
“Oh! Did you not know that it had been removed yesterday? You will never any more see Nelson on his column, Gordon holding his Bible, Napier with his gilded spurs, nor Canning, Disraeli, and so many others, on their pedestals—they have all been taken to South Kensington, for the present. The idea is to build a new hall outside London for all these relics of the past, where they may be viewed by the very few who are anxious to study the curios of an old worn-out civilisation. The Committee has come to the conclusion that our newly-revealed sense of modesty must inevitably be shocked by these indecorous memorials to our great men; and it has decided that the education of the masses must at once begin by the removal of objects more fit for a chamber of horrors than for the contemplation of pure-minded citizens.”
“But what will they put on the pedestals and columns?”
“I heard the curator of Walsingham House say last evening that he meant to suggest a new departure in monument erection. Instead of paying a tribute to the man who, as a soldier, a poet, or a statesman, had but done his duty during his short visit to this planet, he advised that monuments should be raised to abstract principles, and enjoined the Committee to start by replacing the equestrian Duke of Wellington with the detruncated statue of Victory in the Elgin Marbles collection. Gwen, we are at your door, and we must part. When shall I see you again, dearest?”
“To-morrow in the Kensington Gardens, under the shady trees, we shall be able to talk of all the problems we must solve together.”
“Good-night, my Una. How lovely you are, thus caressed by the soft rays of the moon. Have I never gazed into a woman’s face before, that I seem to see your eyes for the first time? I have now discovered the secret of inward beauty, and wherever you are, however surrounded you may be, I shall know you, for I have seen your soul. My whole life will be too short in which to express my rapturous admiration. Forgive me for the past years of blindness.”
“Lion, it is I who have to beg your forgiveness. I never knew you—I never knew my own self. Was it our fault after all? It had never been our lot to meet as two free citizens of the Universe; but, like two miserable slaves of Society, we were trained to trick each other, and to play a blasphemous parody of love, while malice all the time was master of our fettered beings.”