Sir T. I can go on again.
St. J. Then this I'll meet.
Sir T. Oh, Gervase!
St. J. Not disinterested alone:
Infinite things to talk of! First of all,
Why do you set so small a price on life?
You once were proud of your vocation, knew
The meaning of the theatre, felt its wide
Domain.
Sir T. Yes, but I know it now too well,
Even as I know my wife and Warwick Groom.
Let me not know you well, Gervase, not well:
Show me the best in minims and in grams,
But hide the bulk and flood in clouds of dawn,
In silvery mists, the nimbus and the shrine
Of air and sky: the soul should not be seen,
Though mine be naked now.
St. J. You suffer, Tristram.
Naked your soul is, wounded——
Sir T. Flayed alive!
Oh, Gervase, what a spirit of delight,
Of fragrant hope, of fervent faith in men,
I brought incarnate to the theatre!
St. J. Full of vocation, I remember you:
Chiefly in Wytham Wood one afternoon——
Sir T. Ah, how we beat our academic wings
In woods, on hilltops, longing for the world
And to take up our destiny! It took
Me up, and laid me down, and racked and flayed
With unremitting care.
St. J. You held the stage
To be the true adventure of the times.
The earth was known, you said: if magic isles,
Orchards of Hesperus; or queens asleep
For centuries; or that supreme emprise,
The middle passage of the maze of streams,
Acheron, Phlegethon, Cocytus, Styx,
And the return alive from Dis's hall
Through groves of poplar, whispered madnesses,
Obsequious willows, cries, the wild lament
Of old companions, and the doleful shriek
Of her, the best-belov'd, to utter woe
Abandoned: had such high renown been still
Achievable, then had you hoisted sail
And led the way; but since the whole sad world
Was now become mere shop and market-place,
The stage remained the one way of escape,
The one adventure for the adventurous.