Chapter XX

“Nay,” answer’d I, “I like him not for that,—
Because a man!”
“What?—not for that?” she said:
“Aha, have shrewder plans?—I know, I know
It would be well if you, or I, could feel
That all were settled for our wedded life;
So many ifs and ifs, it vexes one;
It would be better, were we done with them.
But we, poor girls, too trusting natures have.
Weak parasites at best, each tall stout man
Seems just the thing that we should cling about.
But, dear, I think that half these trunks give way:—
The wonder is we dare to cling at all!”

“But Haydn,” said I, “Haydn”—
“As for him,”
She sigh’d, “may be he is not trustless all;
Yet if he be, or be not, how know you
Who know not human nature, nor have learn’d
The way to work it, and bring out its worth?
A friend grows grain and chaff. Sift out the first
And cultivate it well, some gain may come—
Some profit from your friendship.”
“But,” said I,
“If you should change yourself who change your friend,
Or change but his relations to yourself,
Or, some way, make a new, strange man of him?”—

“Then would I make,” she said, “what pleases me;
And with what pleases me preserve my love.”