The Sentimentalists | Page 4

not have done the thing.
SWITHIN: In truth; it does remind one of the mess of pottage.
LADY OLDLACE: One hardly felt one breathed.
VIRGINIA: I confess it moved me to tears.
SWITHIN: There is a pathos for us in the display of perfection. Such
subtle contrast with our individual poverty affects us.

WINIFRED: Surely there were passages of a distinct and most
exquisite pathos.
LADY OLDLACE: As in all great oratory! The key of it is the pathos.
VIRGINIA: In great oratory, great poetry, great fiction; you try it by
the pathos. All our critics agree in stipulating for the pathos. My tears
were no feminine weakness, I could not be a discordant instrument.
SWITHIN: I must make confession. He played on me too.
OSIER: We shall be sensible for long of that vibration from the touch
of a master hand.
ARDEN: An accomplished player can make a toy-shop fiddle sound
you a Stradivarius.
DAME DRESDEN: Have you a right to a remark, Mr. Arden? What
could have detained you?
ARDEN: Ah, Dame. It may have been a warning that I am a discordant
instrument. I do not readily vibrate.
DAME DRESDEN: A discordant instrument is out of place in any civil
society. You have lost what cannot be recovered.
ARDEN: There are the notes.
OSIER: Yes, the notes.
SWITHIN: You can be satisfied with the dog's feast at the table, Mr.
Arden!
OSIER: Ha!
VIRGINIA: Never have I seen Astraea look sublimer in her beauty than
with her eyes uplifted to the impassioned speaker, reflecting every
variation of his tones.

ARDEN: Astraea!
LADY OLDLACE: She was entranced when he spoke of woman
descending from her ideal to the gross reality of man.
OSIER: Yes, yes. I have the words [reads]: 'Woman is to the front of
man, holding the vestal flower of a purer civilization. I see,' he says.
'the little taper in her hands transparent round the light, against rough
winds.'
DAME DRESDEN: And of Astraea herself, what were the words?
'Nature's dedicated widow.'
SWITHIN: Vestal widow, was it not?
VIRGINIA: Maiden widow, I think.
DAME DRESDEN: We decide for 'dedicated.'
WINIFRED: Spiral paid his most happy tribute to the memory of her
late husband, the renowned Professor Towers.
VIRGINIA: But his look was at dear Astraea.
ARDEN: At Astraea? Why?
VIRGINIA: For her sanction doubtless.
ARDEN: Ha!
WINIFRED: He said his pride would ever be in his being received as
the successor of Professor Towers.
ARDEN: Successor!
SWITHIN: Guardian was it not?
OSIER: Tutor. I think he said.

(The three gentlemen consult Osier's notes uneasily.)
DAME DRESDEN: Our professor must by this time have received in
full Astraea's congratulations, and Lyra is hearing from her what it is to
be too late. You will join us at the luncheon table, if you do not feel
yourself a discordant instrument there, Mr. Arden?
ARDEN (going to her): The allusion to knife and fork tunes my strings
instantly, Dame.
DAME DRESDEN: You must help me to-day, for the professor will be
tired, though we dare not hint at it in his presence. No reference, ladies,
to the great speech we have been privileged to hear; we have expressed
our appreciation and he could hardly bear it.
ARDEN: Nothing is more distasteful to the orator!
VIRGINIA: As with every true genius, he is driven to feel humbly
human by the exultation of him.
SWITHIN: He breathes in a rarified air.
OSIER: I was thrilled, I caught at passing beauties. I see that here and
there I have jotted down incoherencies, lines have seduced me, so that I
missed the sequence--the precious part. Ladies, permit me to rank him
with Plato as to the equality of women and men.
WINIFRED: It is nobly said.
OSIER: And with the Stoics, in regard to celibacy.
(By this time all the ladies have gone into the house.)
ARDEN: Successor! Was the word successor?
(ARDEN, SWITHIN, and OSIER are excitedly searching the notes
when SPIRAL passes and strolls into the house. His air of self-
satisfaction increases their uneasiness they follow him. ASTRAEA and
LYRA come down the path.)

SCENE V
ASTRAEA, LYRA
LYRA: Oh! Pluriel, ask me of him! I wish I were less sure he would
not be at the next corner I turn.
ASTRAEA: You speak of your husband strangely, Lyra.
LYRA: My head is out of a sack. I managed my escape from him this
morning by renouncing bath and breakfast; and what a relief, to be in
the railway carriage alone! that is, when the engine snorted. And if I set
eyes on him within a week, he will hear some truths. His idea of
marriage is, the taking of the woman into custody. My hat is on, and on
goes Pluriel's. My foot on the stairs; I hear his boot behind me.