Lat. You must have patience, and bear it like a man.
Y. Book. Oh, whither shall I run to avoid myself?
Why all these bars? These bolted iron gates?
They're needless to secure me——Here, here's my rack,
My gaol, my torture——
Oh, I can't bear it. I cannot bear the rushing of new thoughts;
Fancy expands my senses to distraction,
And my soul stretches to that boundless space
To which I've sent my wretched, wretched friend.
Oh, Latine! Latine! Is all our mirth and humour come to this?
Give me thy bosom, close in thy bosom hide me
From thy eyes; I cannot bear their pity or reproach.
Lat. Dear Bookwit, how heartily I love you—I don't know what to say. But pray have patience.
Y. Book. If you can't bear my pain that's but communicated by your pity, how shall I my proper inborn woe, my wounded mind?
Lat. In all assaults of fortune that should be serene,
Not in the power of accident or chance——
Y. Book. Words! words! all that is but mere talk.
Perhaps, indeed, to undeserved affliction
Reason and argument may give relief,
Or in the known vicissitudes of life
We may feel comfort by our self-persuasion;
But oh! there is no taking away guilt:
This divine particle will ache for ever.
There is no help but whence I dare not ask;
When this material organ's indisposed
Juleps can cool and anodynes give rest;
But nothing mix with this celestial drop,
But dew from that high Heaven of which 'tis part.
Lat. May that high Heaven compose your mind,
And reconcile you to yourself.
Y. Book. How can I hope it?
No——I must descend from man,
Grovel on earth, nor dare look up again!
Oh, Lovemore! Lovemore! Where is he now?
Oh, thinking, thinking, why didst thou not come sooner?
Or not now!——
My thoughts do so confuse me now—as my folly and pleasures did before this fatal accident—that I cannot recollect whence Lovemore was provoked to challenge me.
Lat. You know, dear Bookwit, I feared some ill from a careless way of talking. But alas! I dreamt not of so great——
Y. Book. Ay, there it was; he was naturally a little jealous. Heavens, do I say he was? I talked to him of ladies, treats, and he might possibly believe 'twas where he had engaged——I remember his serious behaviour on that subject. Oh, this unhappy tongue of mine!
Thou lawless, voluble, destroying foe,
That still run'st on, nor wait'st command of reason,
Oh, I could tear thee from me——
Lat. Did you not expostulate before the action?
Y. Book. He would have don't; but I, flushed with the thoughts of duelling, pressed on——Thus for the empty praise of fools, I'm solidly unhappy.