—I was not formed for good:
To what Fate orders I must needs submit:
The sin not mine, but His who made me thus—
Not in my will but in my nature lodged.
I will grasp the stable goods of life,
Nor care how foul the hand that does the deed.
Martina is admirably drawn; her wit is excellent, and as exhaustless as it is keen. She says of Calaynos—
He looks on pleasure as a kind of sin,
Calls pastime waste-time——
I heard a man, who spent a mortal life
In hoarding up all kinds of stones and ores,
Call one, who spitted flies upon a pin,
A fool to pass his precious lifetime thus.
She says of Oliver, Calayno's secretary,
Yes, there he goes—
Backward and forward, like a weaver's shuttle,
Spinning some web of wisdom most divine.
She addresses him thus—