It is not thus through injury, I would hope,

That you are made poetical?

LEOLF.

Indeed

There's much that has gone wrong with me, my friend.

How wears the world with you?

'Tis here for I was married as you see me.

Was married, say you?

LEOLF.

EMMA.

Yes, my Lord, last week;

O' Wednesday, God forgive me!

Maids that are beggars cannot, you know, be choosers.

LEOLF.

Well, if you like him I am glad you have him,
And I will mend his fortunes for your sake.

EMMA.

I care not for his fortunes. Oh, my Lord!
Your pardon! But I care for nothing now

Save only this, that you should break the news

Το

my dear father, and on my behalf

Crave his forgiveness; for he dreams not of it.

LEOLF.

He will but dream when he has heard it. Still

This life, and all that it contains, to him

Is but a tissue of illuminous dreams

Filled with book-wisdom, pictured thought, and love

That on its own creations spends itself.

All things he understands, and nothing does.
Profusely eloquent in copious praise

Of action, he will talk to you as one

Whose wisdom lay in dealings and transactions;
Yet so much action as might tie his shoe
Cannot his will command; himself alone

By his own wisdom not a jot the gainer.
Of silence, and the hundred thousand things
"Tis better not to mention, he will speak,

And still most wisely. But, behold! he comes,
Led by your bridegroom, (is it not?) who now
Runs back.

EMMA.

Some fifty yards he has to come,

And holding us before him full in sight,

It may be he will find his way to join us.

But lest he wander and forget himself,

I will conduct him hither.

[Exit.

LEOLF.

Is it not strange

That such a maid should so bestow herself?

But with her courage and her confidence,

Her soft sagacity and ready wit,

His converse hath been profitable; yea,
In teaching him instruction made rebound,
And I was wiser for my pains. In truth,
I have considered and have studied him,
With, peradventure, more of curious care
And critical inquiry than befits

A friend so inward; and I'll vouch for this,
That though, as you have said, the vernal bloom
Of his first spirits fading leaves him changed,
'Tis not to worse. His mind is as a meadow
Of various grasses, rich and fresh beneath,
But o'er the surface some that come to seed
Have cast a colour of sobriety.

For he was ever

He stands before you.

EMMA.

But, my dearest father,

WULFSTAN.

By my life, 'tis true!

Well met, my good Lord and my excellent friend!
My daughter warns me of some tiding strange,
Surprising, unimaginable, by you

To be delivered.

LEOLF.

Strange you needs must think it.

But should it grieve you, call to mind,

pray,

The precept I have heard a thousand times
From your own lips: philosophy, you said,
If ministering not to practice, were more vain
Than a child's rattle, for the infant's mind
The rattle doth in practice hold at rest.

WULFSTAN.

'Tis true; for just philosophy and practice

Are of correlative dependency,

Neither without the other apt or sound

Or certain. For philosophy itself

Smacks of the age it lives in, nor is true

[Erit