the dog in the adage, drop the true boneWith snapping at the sham one in the water?What were you born a man for?

Lewis. Ay, I know it:—I cannot live on dreams. Oh for one friend,Myself, yet not myself; one not so highBut she could love me, not too pure to pardonMy sloth and meanness! Oh for flesh and blood,Before whose feet I could adore, yet love!How easy then were duty! From her lipsTo learn my daily task;—in her pure eyesTo see the living type of those heaven-gloriesI dare not look on;—let her work her willOf love and wisdom on these straining hinds;—To squire a saint around her labour field,And she and it both mine:—That were possession!

Con. The flesh, fair youth—

Wal. Avaunt, bald snake, avaunt!We are past your burrow now. Come, come, Lord Landgrave,Look round, and find your saint.

Lewis. Alas! one such—One such, I know, who upward from one cradleBeside me like a sister—No, thank God! no sister!—Has grown and grown, and with her mellow shadeHas blanched my thornless thoughts to her own hue,And even now is budding into blossom,Which never shall bear fruit, but inward stillResorb its vital nectar, self-contained,And leave no living copies of its beautyTo after ages. Ah! be less, sweet maid,Less than thyself! Yet no—my wife thou might’st be,If less than thus—but not the saint thou art.What! shall my selfish longings drag thee downFrom maid to wife? degrade the soul I worship?That were a caitiff deed! Oh, misery!Is wedlock treason to that purity,Which is the jewel and the soul of wedlock?Elizabeth! my saint! [Exit Conrad.]

Wal. What, Sir? the Princess?Ye saints in heaven, I thank you!

Lewis. Oh, who else,Who else the minutest lineament fulfilsOf this my cherished portrait?

Wal. So—’tis well.Hear me, my Lord.—You think this dainty princessToo perfect for you, eh? That’s well again;For that whose price after fruition fallsMay well too high be rated ere enjoyed—In plain words,—if she looks an angel now, you will be better mated than you expected, when you find her—a woman. For flesh and blood she is, and that young blood,—whom her childish misusage and your brotherly love; her loneliness and your protection; her springing fancy and (for I may speak to you as a son) your beauty and knightly grace, have so bewitched, and as some say, degraded, that briefly, she loves you, and briefly, better, her few friends fear, than you love her.

Lewis. Loves me! My Count, that word is quickly spoken;And yet, if it be true, it 

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