Violet.
Hold, gentlemen, brave gentlemen! ’Twere a pity that two such gentlemen should end a harmless jest in sanguinary strife. Come. Your brave humors make the rash current of your words more harmful than your sword-blades. Believe me. Come.
[Exeunt Whetstone and Violet.
Fopdoodle.
I’ll challenge him this very night to fight a duel. Fopdoodle, thou art a brave man. Bless thee, Augustus Fopdoodle. Bless thee, O dazzling Violet! I am a terribly quick man, and I should have killed thousands of men had I but done it when I thought to do it. Let me think.—No, I must not think so much upon the bloody deed, the grim and horrid spectacle. Thinking cools me off like an evaporation; yet truly there is a manifold vigor in me, O dazzling Violet, else why am I so brave when heated? Fire brings out my bravery. What is the coward quality that on a sudden chokes my valor so? I have it: it comes of too much thinking. Let me pluck it out.—But no, I cannot pluck out my brains; yet I will admonish my head not to think so much. But still, thinking is wisdom; therefore too much wisdom makes me a thinking coward. I must cultivate less wisdom. O dazzling Violet! I’ll send him a challenge, and he’ll not fight. A bloodless triumph. Now thinking comes to my rescue. Animals have not this process of thinking, for I have seen terrible animals fight ferociously until they were dead, dead. O dazzling Violet! Therefore I bless thee, Augustus Fopdoodle, that thou hast the spirit of bravery; but I do bless thee more that thou hast the process of thinking. I do not think he’ll fight. O dazzling Violet!
[Exit.
Scene III.—The same.
Enter Scythe, with glass. He seats himself in a corner, observes the moon, and takes notes. Enter Bluegrass and Ninon, who do not observe him.
Bluegrass.
We have tripped into the hour of midnight, the fairies’ hour. Now the fairest face, night-blooming like a mystic flower, may unmask its sweetness.