The Sentimentalists | Page 8

My freedom keeps me
free! He counselled us? I am not one in a conspiracy. I scheme no
discord with my present life. Who does, I cannot look on as my friend.
Not free? You know me little. Were I chained, For liberty I would sell
liberty To him who helped me to an hour's release. But having perfect
freedom . . .
ARDEN: No.

ASTRAEA: Good sir, You check me?
ARDEN: Perfect freedom?
ASTRAEA: Perfect!
ARDEN: No!
ASTRAEA: Am I awake? What blinds me?
ARDEN: Filaments The slenderest ever woven about a brain From the
brain's mists, by the little sprite called Fancy. A breath would scatter
them; but that one breath Must come of animation. When the heart Is as,
a frozen sea the brain spins webs.
ASTRAEA: 'Tis very singular! I understand. You translate cleverly. I
hear in verse My uncle Homeware's prose. He has these notions. Old
men presume to read us.
ARDEN: Young men may. You gaze on an ideal reflecting you Need I
say beautiful? Yet it reflects Less beauty than the lady whom I love
Breathes, radiates. Look on yourself in me. What harm in gazing? You
are this flower You are that spirit. But the spirit fed With substance of
the flower takes all its bloom! And where in spirits is the bloom of the
flower?
ASTRAEA: 'Tis very singular. You have a tone Quite changed.
ARDEN: You wished a change. To show you, how I read you . . .
ASTRAEA: Oh! no, no. It means dissection. I never heard of reading
character That did not mean dissection. Spare me that. I am wilful,
violent, capricious, weak, Wound in a web of my own spinning-wheel,
A star-gazer, a riband in the wind . . .
ARDEN: A banner in the wind! and me you lead, And shall! At least, I
follow till I win.
ASTRAEA: Forbear, I do beseech you.

ARDEN: I have had Your hand in mine.
ASTRAEA: Once.
ARDEN: Once! Once! 'twas; once, was the heart alive, Leaping to
break the ice. Oh! once, was aye That laughed at frosty May like
spring's return. Say you are terrorized: you dare not melt. You like me;
you might love me; but to dare, Tasks more than courage. Veneration,
friends, Self-worship, which is often self-distrust, Bar the good way to
you, and make a dream A fortress and a prison.
ASTRAEA: Changed! you have changed Indeed. When you so boldly
seized my hand It seemed a boyish freak, done boyishly. I wondered at
Professor Spiral's choice Of you for an example, and our hope. Now
you grow dangerous. You must have thought, And some things true
you speak-save 'terrorized.' It may be flattering to sweet self-love To
deem me terrorized.--'Tis my own soul, My heart, my mind, all that I
hold most sacred, Not fear of others, bids me walk aloof. Who
terrorizes me? Who could? Friends? Never! The world? as little.
Terrorized!
ARDEN: Forgive me.
ASTRAEA: I might reply, Respect me. If I loved, If I could be so
faithless as to love, Think you I would not rather noise abroad My
shame for penitence than let friends dwell Deluded by an image of one
vowed To superhuman, who the common mock Of things too human
has at heart become.
ARDEN: You would declare your love?
ASTRAEA: I said, my shame. The woman that's the widow is ensnared,
Caught in the toils! away with widows!--Oh! I hear men shouting it.
ARDEN: But shame there's none For me in loving: therefore I may take
Your friends to witness? tell them that my pride Is in the love of you?
ASTRAEA: 'Twill soon bring The silence that should be between us

two, And sooner give me peace.
ARDEN: And you consent?
ASTRAEA: For the sake of peace and silence I consent, You should be
warned that you will cruelly Disturb them. But 'tis best. You should be
warned Your pleading will be hopeless. But 'tis best. You have my full
consent. Weigh well your acts, You cannot rest where you have cast
this bolt Lay that to heart, and you are cherished, prized, Among them:
they are estimable ladies, Warmest of friends; though you may think
they soar Too loftily for your measure of strict sense (And as my uncle
Homeware's pupil, sir, In worldliness, you do), just minds they have:
Once know them, and your banishment will fret. I would not run such
risks. You will offend, Go near to outrage them; and perturbate As they
have not deserved of you. But I, Considering I am nothing in the scales
You balance, quite and of necessity Consent. When you have weighed
it, let me hear. My uncle Homeware steps this way in haste. We have
been talking long, and in full view !