We pity and utter a prayer for mercy which the guilty lips of the sufferer dare not form themselves.
The remark of the gentlewoman is as applicable to a class of characters as that of Lady Macbeth.
I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the dignity of the whole body.
This is the voice of innocence—lowly, self-congratulating innocence. The humble dependant of the royal household is made to feel the immeasurable advantage a peaceful conscience affords over all the passing and hollow gauds of the world. She sees what a mockery are rank, wealth, power, fame—when bought by the sacrifice of that greatest of all treasures—a quiet heart. She will go gladly, after this—that honest lady, on her obscure path, turning to her God with a deeper reverence and love. She will pour out her heart to him in gratitude that she has escaped the temptations of life thus far, and humbly implored him to watch continually over her steps, to strengthen her good resolutions, to teach her to subdue her passions, and to lead her safely through the pit-falls of her mortal pilgrimage.
It seems almost impossible to carry the scene farther, but the poet does so.
The mind of the reader, stretched to a too strong tension, is relieved by the few, broken yet calm expressions of the two watchers whose health and hearts’ ease also afford a contrast which sets off more strikingly the state of the wretched lady thus floating by us like a rudderless wreck sweeping onward with a resistless current to the brink of some vast cataract or yawning and unfathomless Maelstrom.
The doctor’s “Well, well, well,—” shows embarrassment the result of amazement. He scarcely knows what to do. He, also, has now become the possessor of an astounding and dangerous secret, and he might well be supposed to hesitate as to the proper course to pursue. He does not seem decided to acknowledge the full extent of his conviction, yet he cannot deny that the patient is not to be cured by his medicine. He does not seem inclined to enter upon any confidential interchanges of opinions with the gentlewoman. He is, in all things, the man of the world—the professional man and the courtier. The very air he breathes he may imagine full of eyes and ears. He may be no more inclined to trust the gentlewoman than she had been to trust him. Guilt, gloom, and danger preside over the blood-stained castle, and envelope the principal inmates—while suspicions, fear and silent watchfulness are hugged to the anxious bosom of each distrustful servant. The doctor’s “Well, well, well”—is a kind of mask to hide what is passing in his mind: and the gentlewoman with less art, equal prudence and more piety, ventures only upon the awe-struck prayer,
Pray God, it be, sir!
The doctor then confesses,
This disease is beyond my practice!