I can scarce
conceive a situation more calculated to enhance the ardour of Romeo's
affection for Juliet than his being at once raised by her from the state
of drooping melancholy in which he appears first upon the scene to the
ecstatic state in which he exclaims--
--come what sorrow can,
It cannot countervail the exchange of joy
That one short moment gives me in her sight.'
'Good now, Miss Mac-Ivor,' said a young lady of quality, 'do you mean to
cheat us out of our prerogative? will you persuade us love cannot subsist
without hope, or that the lover must become fickle if the lady is cruel?
O fie! I did not expect such an unsentimental conclusion.'
'A lover, my dear Lady Betty,' said Flora, 'may, I conceive, persevere in
his suit under very discouraging circumstances. Affection can (now and
then) withstand very severe storms of rigour, but not a long polar frost
of downright indifference. Don't, even with YOUR attractions, try the
experiment upon any lover whose faith you value. Love will subsist on
wonderfully little hope, but not altogether without it.'
'It will be just like Duncan Mac-Girdie's mare,' said Evan, 'if your
ladyships please, he wanted to use her by degrees to live without meat,
and just as he had put her on a straw a day the poor thing died!'
Evan's illustration set the company a-laughing, and the discourse took a
different turn.
Pages:
693
694
695
696
697
698
699
700
701
702
703
704
705
706
707
708
709
710
711
712
713
714
715
716
717