Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
Read this ebook for free! No credit card needed, absolutely nothing to pay.
Words: 38450 in 30 pages
This is an ebook sharing website. You can read the uploaded ebooks for free here. No credit cards needed, nothing to pay. If you want to own a digital copy of the ebook, or want to read offline with your favorite ebook-reader, then you can choose to buy and download the ebook.
SPOKEN BY MR. TREE IN THE CHARACTER OF BEAU AUSTIN
'To all and singular,' as Dryden says, We bring a fancy of those Georgian days, Whose style still breathed a faint and fine perfume Of old-world courtliness and old-world bloom: When speech was elegant and talk was fit For slang had not been canonised as wit; When manners reigned, when breeding had the wall, And Women - yes! - were ladies first of all; When Grace was conscious of its gracefulness, And man - though Man! - was not ashamed to dress. A brave formality, a measured ease, Were his - and her's - whose effort was to please. And to excel in pleasing was to reign And, if you sighed, never to sigh in vain.
But then, as now - it may be, something more - Woman and man were human to the core. The hearts that throbbed behind that quaint attire Burned with a plenitude of essential fire. They too could risk, they also could rebel, They could love wisely - they could love too well. In that great duel of Sex, that ancient strife Which is the very central fact of life, They could - and did - engage it breath for breath, They could - and did - get wounded unto death. As at all times since time for us began Woman was truly woman, man was man, And joy and sorrow were as much at home In trifling Tunbridge as in mighty Rome.
Dead - dead and done with! Swift from shine to shade The roaring generations flit and fade. To this one, fading, flitting, like the rest, We come to proffer - be it worst or best - A sketch, a shadow, of one brave old time; A hint of what it might have held sublime; A dream, an idyll, call it what you will, Of man still Man, and woman - Woman still!
BEAU AUSTIN
MUSICAL INDUCTION: 'LASCIA CH'IO PIANGA' . HANDEL.
The Stage represents Miss Foster's apartments at the Wells. Doors, L. and C.; a window, L. C., looking on the street; a table R., laid for breakfast.
SCENE I
BARBARA; to her MISS FOSTER
BARBARA . Mr. Menteith! Mr. Menteith! Mr. Menteith! - Drat his old head! Will nothing make him hear? - Mr. Menteith!
MISS FOSTER . Barbara! this is incredible: after all my lessons, to be leaning from the window, and calling into the street.
BARBARA. Well, madam, just wait until you hear who it was. I declare it was much more for Miss Dorothy and yourself than for me; and if it was a little countrified, I had a good excuse.
Free books android app tbrJar TBR JAR Read Free books online gutenberg
(0)More posts by @FreeBooks
