Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/346

 and fashioned solely for dependence: a disposition, not a will; a wife for Hamlet's will, but poor to husband one of her own.

What will become of her? What becomes of the vine when lightning splits its oak? The clipping tendrils and soft green have lost their reason for existing when the wood which centuries have grained is blasted in an hour. She will shrink into herself, will sicken, grow sere, rustle to and fro. Her leaves will blab loose songs to every wanton wind. To wither is all that is left to do, since all that she could do was to love, to climb, to cling, to cloak ruggedness with grace, to make strength and stature serve to lift and develop all her beauteous quality.

She is free to love, yet bound by old-fashioned duty toward her father; and he belongs to the old fashion of supposing that a prince can only amuse himself, no matter what sweet protestations flow into her ear. She cannot believe it; nor, when her flighty brother serves her with long-winded cautions on the same subject, does she hardly seem to listen. Her answers are so short that she plainly does not share his solicitude. In fact, she is highly amused to see him play the prig with the consequential air which only a brother can assume. Between the lines there are peals of girlish laughter, not printed, as she turns upon him with the advice to take himself into custody. This amusement ripples through her retort:—

"Good my brother, Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;