You think, then——
DIEGO
I do not think; I know. And you will know, some day. And then——
PRINCESS
Then I shall suffer. Why, we must all suffer. Say that, having a heart, a heart for husband or child, means certain grief,—well, does not riding, walking down your stairs, mean the chance of broken bones? Does not living mean old age, disease, possible blindness or paralysis, and quite inevitable aches? If, as you say, I must needs grow a heart, and if a heart must needs give agony, why, I shall live through heartbreak as through pain in any other limb.
DIEGO
Yes,—were your heart a limb like all the rest,—but 'tis the very centre and fountain of all life.
PRINCESS
You think so? 'Tis, methinks, pushing analogy too far, and metaphor. This necessary organ, diffusing life throughout us, and, as physicians say, removing with its vigorous floods all that has ceased to live, replacing it with new and living tissue,—this great literal heart cannot be the seat of only one small passion.
DIEGO