NAPOLÉON
I will send Savary at to-morrow’s blink
And make all lucid to the Emperor.
For us, I wholly can avow as mine
The cordial spirit of your Majesty.
[They retire towards the carriage of FRANCIS. BERTHIER, SAVARY,
LICHTENSTEIN, and the suite of officers advance from the background,
and with mutual gestures of courtesy and amicable leave-takings
the two Emperors part company.]
CHORUS OF THE PITIES [aerial music]
Each for himself, his family, his heirs;
For the wan weltering nations who concerns, who cares?
CHORUS OF IRONIC SPIRITS
A pertinent query, in truth!—
But spoil not the sport by your ruth:
’Tis enough to make half
Yonder zodiac laugh
When rulers begin to allude
To their lack of ambition,
And strong opposition
To all but the general good!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Hush levities. Events press: turn ye westward.
[A nebulous curtain draws slowly across.]
SCENE VI
SHOCKERWICK HOUSE, NEAR BATH
[The interior of the Picture Gallery. Enter WILTSHIRE, the owner,
and Pitt, who looks emaciated and walks feebly.]
WILTSHIRE [pointing to a portrait]
Now here you have the lady we discussed:
A fine example of his manner, sir?
PITT
It is a fine example, sir, indeed,—
With that transparency amid the shades,
And those thin blue-green-grayish leafages
Behind the pillar in the background there,
Which seem the leaves themselves.—Ah, this is Quin.
[Moving to another picture.]
WILTSHIRE
Yes, Quin. A man of varied parts, though rough
And choleric at times. Yet, at his best,
As Falstaff, never matched, they say. But I
Had not the fate to see him in the flesh.
PITT
Churchill well carves him in his “Character”:—
“His eyes, in gloomy socket taught to roll,
Proclaimed the sullen habit of his soul.
In fancied scenes, as in Life’s real plan,
He could not for a moment sink the man:
Nature, in spite of all his skill, crept in;
Horatio, Dorax, Falstaff—stile ’twas Quin.”
—He was at Bath when Gainsborough settled there
In that house in the Circus which we know.—
I like the portrait much.—The brilliancy
Of Gainsborough lies in this his double sway:
Sovereign of landscape he; of portraiture
Joint monarch with Sir Joshua.... Ah?—that’s—hark!
Is that the patter of horses’s hoofs
Along the road?