Whence follows many a vacant pang.”
In the third canto the mock damsels pursue still further their studies, and mounted on horses, in company with the Princess, make a geological excursion in the neighboring country. The Prince and Princess ride side by side, and out of their conversation grows a reference to her betrothal to the young prince in the North. Her reply to the statement of her disguised companion, that her persistence in refusing to make good her pledge of marriage would surely lead to the death of the Prince, is characteristic of a woman who is waging war with her womanly instincts and the rooted affections of her heart, and undertakes the heavy task of breasting the current of nature with its strong and irresistible tide. Here is the crumb of consolation she offers him in his disappointment:
“‘Poor boy,’ she cried, ‘can he not read—no books?
Quoit, tennis, ball—no games? nor deals in that
Which men delight in, martial exercise?
To nurse a blind ideal like a girl,
Methinks he seems no better than a girl;
As girls were once, as we ourself have been;
We had our dreams; perhaps he mixt with them.’”
This reminds one of the advice given in Donald G. Mitchell’s “Reveries of a Bachelor” to a disappointed lover—to adopt a diet of vegetables and read Jeremy Taylor’s sermons.