"My part of Death, no one so true
Did share it."

Therefore she says, in the great first scene, "Was not _this_ love indeed?"
and in the less heeded closing one, her heart then happy with the knitters
in the _sun_,

"And all those sayings will I over-swear,
And all those swearings keep as true in soul
As doth that orbed continent the Fire
That severs day from night."

Or, at least, did once sever day from night,--and perhaps does still in
Illyria. Old England must seek new images for her loves from gas and
electric sparks,--not to say furnace fire.

I am obliged, by press of other work, to set down these notes in cruel
shortness: and many a reader may be disposed to question utterly the
standard by which the measurement is made. It will not be found, on
reference to my other books, that they encourage young ladies to go into
convents; or undervalue the dignity of wives and mothers. But, as surely as
the sun _does_ sever day from night, it will be found always that the
noblest and loveliest women are dutiful and religious by continual nature;
and their passions are trained to obey them; like their dogs. Homer,
indeed, loves Helen with all his heart, and restores her, after all her
naughtiness, to the queenship of her household; but he never thinks of her
as Penelope's equal, or Iphigenia's. Practically, in daily life, one often
sees married women as good as saints; but rarely, I think, unless they have
a good deal to bear from their husbands. Sometimes also, no doubt, the
husbands have some trouble in managing St. Cecilia or St. Elizabeth; of