But how? Quite so. Though I dismiss Dark, unavailing reverie, I just hint, in parenthesis, There is no stupid calumny Born of a babbler in a loft And by the world repeated oft, There is no fishmarket retort And no ridiculous report, Which your true friend with a sweet smile Where fashionable circles meet A hundred times will not repeat, Quite inadvertently meanwhile; And yet he in your cause would strive And loves you as—a relative! XIV Ahem! Ahem! My reader noble, Are all your relatives quite well? Permit me; is it worth the trouble For your instruction here to tell What I by relatives conceive? These are your relatives, believe: Those whom we ought to love, caress, With spiritual tenderness; Whom, as the custom is of men, We visit about Christmas Day, Or by a card our homage pay, That until Christmas comes again They may forget that we exist. And so—God bless them, if He list. XV In this the love of the fair sex Beats that of friends and relatives: In love, although its tempests vex, Our liberty at least survives: Agreed! but then the whirl of fashion, The natural fickleness of passion, The torrent of opinion, And the fair sex as light as down! Besides the hobbies of a spouse Should be respected throughout life By every proper-minded wife, And this the faithful one allows, When in as instant she is lost,— Satan will jest, and at love’s cost. XVI Oh! where bestow our love? Whom trust? Where is he who doth not deceive? Who words and actions will adjust To standards in which we believe? Oh! who is not calumnious? Who labours hard to humour us? To whom are our misfortunes grief And who is not a tiresome thief? My venerated reader, oh! Cease the pursuit of shadows vain, Spare yourself unavailing pain And all your love on self bestow; A worthy object ’tis, and well I know there’s none more amiable. XVII But from the interview what flowed? Alas! It is not hard to guess. The insensate fire of love still glowed Nor discontinued to distress A spirit which for sorrow yearned. Tattiana more than ever burned With hopeless passion: from her bed Sweet slumber winged its way and fled. Her health, life’s sweetness and its bloom, Her smile and maidenly repose, All vanished as an echo goes. Across her youth a shade had come, As when the tempest’s veil is drawn Across the smiling face of dawn. XVIII