No More Learning

"What reason had you, and what right,--I appeal to your soul from my
life,--
To find me too fair as a woman? Why, sir, I am pure, and a wife.

XIV.

"Is the day-star too fair up above you? It burns you not. Dare you
imply
I brushed you more close than the star does, when Walter had set me
as high?

XV.

"If a man finds a woman too fair, he means simply adapted too much
To uses unlawful and fatal. The praise! --shall I thank you for
such?

XVI.

"Too fair? --not unless you misuse us! and surely if, once in a
while,
You attain to it, straightway you call us no longer too fair, but
too vile.

XVII.
"A moment,--I pray your attention! --I have a poor word in my head
I must utter, though womanly custom would set it down better
unsaid.

XVIII.

"You grew, sir, pale to impertinence, once when I showed you a
ring.
You kissed my fan when I dropped it. No matter! --I've broken the
thing.

XIX.

"You did me the honour, perhaps, to be moved at my side now and
then
In the senses--a vice, I have heard, which is common to beasts and
some men.

XX.

"Love's a virtue for heroes! --as white as the snow on high hills,
And immortal as every great soul is that struggles, endures, and
fulfils.

XXI.

"I love my Walter profoundly,--you, Maude, though you faltered a
week,
For the sake of . . .