Enter MILDRED
MILDRED. What book
Is it I wanted, Thorold? Guendolen
Thought you were pale; you are not pale. That book?
That's Latin surely.
TRESHAM. Mildred, here's a line,
(Don't lean on me: I'll English it for you)
"Love conquers all things." What love conquers them?
What love should you esteem--best love?
MILDRED. True love.
TRESHAM. I mean, and should have said, whose love is best
Of all that love or that profess to love?
MILDRED.
The list's so long: there's father's, mother's, husband's...
TRESHAM. Mildred, I do believe a brother's love
For a sole sister must exceed them all.
For see now, only see! there's no alloy
Of earth that creeps into the perfect'st gold
Of other loves--no gratitude to claim;
You never gave her life, not even aught
That keeps life--never tended her, instructed,
Enriched her--so, your love can claim no right
O'er her save pure love's claim: that's what I call
Freedom from earthliness. You'll never hope
To be such friends, for instance, she and you,
As when you hunted cowslips in the woods,
Or played together in the meadow hay.
Oh yes--with age, respect comes, and your worth
Is felt, there's growing sympathy of tastes,
There's ripened friendship, there's confirmed esteem:
--Much head these make against the newcomer!
The startling apparition, the strange youth--
Whom one half-hour's conversing with, or, say,
Mere gazing at, shall change (beyond all change
This Ovid ever sang about) your soul
.
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