But the Princess is now gradually to discover that she has "overthrown more than her enemy,"—that she has defeated yet saved herself. She has said of Lady Psyche's little child:—
"I took it for an hour in mine own bed
This morning: there the tender orphan hands
Felt at my heart, and seem'd to charm from thence
The wrath I nursed against the world."
When Cyril pleads with her to give the child back to its mother, she kisses it and feels that "her heart is barren." When she passes near the wounded Prince, and is shown by his father—his beard wet with his son's blood—her hair and picture on her lover's heart,
Her iron will was broken in her mind,
Her noble heart was broken in her breast.
From the Princess's cry then, "Grant me your son to nurse," it is but a natural result that she should bring the Prince's wounded men with him into the College, now a hospital. Through ministering to her lover, she comes to love him; and theories yield to "the lord of all."
—Copeland-Rideout: Introduction to Tennyson's Princess.
+Theme LXXI.+—Write the plot of one of the following:—
1. Lochinvar, Scott. 2. Rip Van Winkle, Irving. 3. One story from A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens. 4. Silas Marner, George Eliot. 5. The last magazine story you have read. 6. Some story assigned by the teacher.
+Theme LXXII.+—Write three brief plots. Have the class choose the one that will make the most interesting story.
+Theme LXXIII.+—Write a story, using the plot selected by the class in the preceding theme.