Essex.
“So say all fathers, so say all husbands. Look at any old mansion-house, and let the sun shine as gloriously as it may on the golden vanes, or the arms recently quartered over the gateway, or the embayed window, and on the happy pair that haply is toying at it; nevertheless, thou mayest say that of a certainty the same fabric hath seen much sorrow within its chambers, and heard many wailings; and each time this was the heaviest stroke of all. Funerals have passed along through the stout-hearted knights upon the wainscot, and amidst the laughing nymphs upon the arras. Old servants have shaken their heads, as if somebody had deceived them, when they found that beauty and nobility could perish.
“Edmund! the things that are too true pass by us as if they were not true at all; and when they have singled us out, then only do they strike us. Thou and I must go too. Perhaps the next year may blow us away with its fallen leaves.” [217]
Spenser.
“For you, my lord, many years (I trust) are waiting; I never shall see those fallen leaves. No leaf, no bud will spring upon the earth before I sink into her breast for ever.”
Essex.
“Thou, who art wiser than most men, shouldst bear with patience, equanimity, and courage, what is common to all.”
Spenser.
“Enough! enough! enough! Have all men seen their infant burnt to ashes before their eyes?”