Passionate Courtship.
Infortunio. I must have other answer, for I love you.
Selina. Must! but I don’t see any necessity that
I must love you. I do confess you are
A proper man.
Inf. O do not mock, Selina; let not excellence,
Which you are full of, make you proud and scornful.
I am a Gentleman; though my outward part
Cannot attract affection, yet some have told me,
Nature hath made me what she need not shame.
Yet look into my heart; there you shall see
What you cannot despise, for there you are
With all your graces waiting on you; there
Love hath made you a throne to sit, and rule
O’er Infortunio; all my thoughts obeying,
And honouring you as queen. Pass by my outside,
My breast I dare compare with any man.
Sel. But who can see this breast you boast of so?
Inf. O ’tis an easy work; for though it be
Not to be pierced by the dull eye, whose beam
Is spent on outward shapes, there is a way
To make a search into its hidden’st passage.
I know you would not love, to please your sense.
A tree, that bears a ragged unleav’d top
In depth of winter, may when summer comes
Speak by his fruit he is not dead but youthful,
Though once he shew’d no sap: my heart’s a plant
Kept down by colder thoughts and doubtful fears.
Your frowns like winter storms make it seem dead,
But yet it is not so; make it but yours,
And you shall see it spring, and shoot forth leaves
Worthy your eye, and the oppressed sap
Ascend to every part to make it green,
And pay your love with fruit when harvest comes.
Sel. Then you confess your love is cold as yet,
And winter’s in your heart.
Inf. Mistake me not, Selina, for I say
My heart is cold, not love.
Sel. And yet your love is from your heart, I’ll warrant.
Inf. O you are nimble to mistake.
My heart is cold in your displeasures only,
And yet my love is fervent; for your eye,
Casting out beams, maintains the flame it burns in.
Again, sweet Love,
My heart is not mine own, ’tis yours, you have it;
And while it naked lies, not deign’d your bosom
To keep it warm, how can it be but cold,
In danger to be frozen? blame not it,
You only are in fault it hath no heat.
Sel. Well, Sir; I know you have rhetoric, but I
Can without art give you a final answer.
Inf. O stay, and think awhile; I cannot relish
You should say final: sweet, deliberate;
It doth concern all the estate I have;
I mean not dunghill treasure, but my life
Doth stand or fall to it; if your answer be
That you can love me, be as swift as light’ning;
But if you mean to kill me, and reject
My so long love-devotions, which I’ve paid
As to an altar, stay a little longer,
And let me count the riches I shall lose
By one poor airy word; first give me back
That part of Infortunio that is lost
Within your love; play not the tyrant with me.
C. L.
[305] Turn.
RIDICULE.
In many cases ridicule might be used in the place of severe chastisement, and sometimes with a more lasting effect, especially among young people. One scheme of this kind was tried with great success by the elder Dr. Newcome, who governed a school at Hackney about forty years ago. When a pupil mistook in the pronunciation of a Latin word, he used to make the faulty lad repeat after him, before the whole school, “Nos Germăni, non curămus, quantītătem, syllābărum.” The penalty of uttering, in false quantity, this absurd assertion, supposed to be made by a German, importing that “His countrymen minded not how they pronounced Latin,” was more dreaded by the boys than the ferula or the rod.