"My dear, you have lived most of your days in a Court, and I have not been wholly unacquainted with that sort of life. In Courts, you see good-will is spoken with great warmth, ill will covered with great civility. Men are long in civilities to those they hate, and short in expressions of kindness to those they love. Therefore, my dear, let us be well-bred still, and it is no matter, as to all who see us, whether we love or hate: and to let you see how much you are beholden to me for my conduct, I have both hated and despised you, my dear, this half year; and yet neither in language nor behaviour has it been visible but that I loved you tenderly. Therefore, as I know you go out of town to divert life in pursuit of beasts, and conversation with men just above them; so, my life, from this moment, I shall read all the learned cooks who have ever writ, study broths, plaisters, and conserves, till from a fine lady I become a notable woman. We must take our minds a note or two lower, or we shall be tortured by jealousy or anger. Thus I am resolved to kill all keen passions by employing my mind on little subjects, and lessening the easiness of my spirit; while you, my dear, with much ale, exercise, and ill company, are so good as to endeavour to be as contemptible as it is necessary for my quiet I should think you."
To Rutland they arrived, and lived with great, but secret impatience for many successive years, till Osmyn thought of a happy expedient to give their affairs a new turn. One day he took Elmira aside, and spoke as follows:
"My dear, you see here the air is so temperate and serene, the rivulets, the groves, and soil, so extremely kind to nature, that we are stronger and firmer in our health since we left the town; so that there is no hope of a release in this place: but if you will be so kind as to go with me to my estate in the Hundreds of Essex, it is possible some kind damp may one day or other relieve us. If you will condescend to accept of this offer, I will add that whole estate to your jointure in this county."
Elmira, who was all goodness, accepted the offer, removed accordingly, and has left her spouse in that place to rest with his fathers.
This is the real figure in which Elmira ought to be beheld in this town, and not thought guilty of an indecorum, in not professing the sense, or bearing the habit of sorrow, for one who robbed her of all the endearments of life, and gave her only common civility, instead of complacency of manners, dignity of passion, and that constant assemblage of soft desires and affections which all feel who love, but none can express.
Will's Coffee-house, August 10.
Mr. Truman, who is a mighty admirer of dramatic poetry, and knows I am about a tragedy, never meets me, but he is giving admonitions and hints for my conduct. "Mr. Bickerstaff," said he, "I was reading last night your second act you were so kind to lend me; but I find you depend mightily upon the retinue of your hero to make him magnificent. You make guards, and ushers, and courtiers, and commons, and nobles, march before, and then enters your prince, and says they can't defend him from his love. Why, prithee Isaac, who ever thought they could? Place me your loving monarch in a solitude; let him have no sense at all of his grandeur, but let it be eaten up with his passion. He must value himself as the greatest of lovers, not as the first of princes: and then let him say a more tender thing than ever man said before—for his feather and eagle's beak is nothing at all. The man is to be expressed by his sentiments and affections, and not by his fortune or equipage. You are also to take care, that at his first entrance he says something which may give us an idea of what we are to expect in a person of his way of thinking. Shakespeare is your pattern."[48] In the tragedy of "Cæsar," he introduces his hero in his nightgown. He had at that time all the power of Rome: deposed consuls, subordinate generals, and captive princes, might have preceded him; but his genius was above such mechanic methods of showing greatness. Therefore he rather presents that great soul debating upon the subject of life and death with his intimate friends, without endeavouring to prepossess his audience with empty show and pomp. When those who attend him talk of the many omens which had appeared that day, he answers:
Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come, when it will come.[49]
When the hero has spoken this sentiment, there is nothing that is great which cannot be expected, from one whose first position is the contempt of death to so high a degree, as making his exit a thing wholly indifferent, and not a part of his care, but that of heaven and fate.