No More Learning

Ay, if I desire the presence of my son, I must command it--
Ferdinand, I have observed you for some time past, and find no longer
that open vivacity of youth which once so delighted me. An unusual
sorrow broods upon your features; you shun your father; you shun society.
For shame, Ferdinand! At your age a thousand irregularities are easier
forgiven than one instant of idle melancholy. Leave this to me, my son!
Leave the care of your future happiness to my direction, and study only
to co-operate with my designs--come, Ferdinand, embrace me!

FERDINAND. You are most gracious to-day, father!

PRESIDENT. "To-day," you rogue? and your "to-day" with such a vinegar
look? (Seriously. ) Ferdinand! For whose sake have I trod that
dangerous path which leads to the affections of the prince? For whose
sake have I forever destroyed my peace with Heaven and my conscience?
Hear me, Ferdinand--I am speaking to my son. For whom have I paved the
way by the removal of my predecessor? a deed which the more deeply gores
my inward feelings the more carefully I conceal the dagger from the
world! Tell me, Ferdinand, for whose sake have I done all this?

FERDINAND (recoiling with horror). Surely not for mine, father, not for
mine? Surely not on me can fall the bloody reflection of this murder?
By my Almighty Maker, it were better never to have been born than to be
the pretext for such a crime!

PRESIDENT. What sayest thou? How? But I will attribute these strange
notions to thy romantic brain, Ferdinand; let me not lose my temper--
ungrateful boy! Thus dost thou repay me for my sleepless nights? Thus
for my restless anxiety to promote thy good? Thus for the never-dying
scorpion of my conscience? Upon me must fall the burden of
responsibility; upon me the curse, the thunderbolt of the Judge. Thou
receivest thy fortune from another's hand--the crime is not attached to
the inheritance.

FERDINAND (extending his right hand towards heaven). Here I solemnly
abjure an inheritance which must ever remind me of a parent's guilt!

PRESIDENT. Hear me, sirrah! and do not incense me! Were you left to
your own direction you would crawl through life in the dust.

FERDINAND. Oh! better, father, far, far better, than to crawl about a
throne!

PRESIDENT (repressing his anger). So! Then compulsion must make you
sensible of your good fortune! To that point, which, with the utmost
striving a thousand others fail to reach, you have been exalted in your
very sleep. At twelve you received a commission; at twenty a command. I
have succeeded in obtaining for you the duke's patronage. He bids you
lay aside your uniform, and share with me his favor and his confidence.
He spoke of titles--embassies--of honors bestowed but upon few. A
glorious prospect spreads itself before you! The direct path to the
place next the throne lies open to you! Nay, to the throne itself, if
the actual power of ruling is equivalent to the mere symbol. Does not
that idea awaken your ambition?

FERDINAND. No! My ideas of greatness and happiness differ widely from
yours. Your happiness is but seldom known, except by the misery of
others. Envy, terror, hatred are the melancholy mirrors in which the
smiles of princes are reflected. Tears, curses, and the wailings of
despair, the horrid banquet that feasts your supposed elect of fortune;
intoxicated with these they rush headlong into eternity, staggering to
the throne of judgment. My ideas of happiness teach me to look for its
fountain in myself! All my wishes lie centered in my heart!

PRESIDENT. Masterly! Inimitable! Admirable! The first schooling I
have received these thirty years! Pity that the brain at fifty should be
so dull at learning! But--that such talent may not rust, I will place
one by your side on whom you can practise your harlequinade follies at
pleasure. You will resolve--resolve this very day--to take a wife.

FERDINAND (starting back amazed). Father!

PRESIDENT. Answer me not. I have made proposals, in your name, to Lady
Milford. You will instantly determine upon going to her, and declaring
yourself her bridegroom.

FERDINAND. Lady Milford! father?

PRESIDENT. I presume she is not unknown to you!

FERDINAND (passionately). To what brothel is she unknown through the
dukedom? But pardon me, dearest father! It is ridiculous to imagine
that your proposal can be serious. Would you call yourself father of
that infamous son who married a licensed prostitute?

PRESIDENT. Nay, more. I would ask her hand myself, if she would take a
man of fifty. Would not you call yourself that infamous father's son?

FERDINAND. No! as God lives! that would I not!

PRESIDENT. An audacity, by my honor! which I pardon for its excessive
singularity.

FERDINAND. I entreat you, father, release me from a demand which would
render it insupportable to call myself your son.

PRESIDENT. Are you distracted, boy? What reasonable man would not
thirst after a distinction which makes him, as one of a trio, the equal
and co-partner of his sovereign?

FERDINAND. You are quite an enigma to me, father! "A distinction," do
you call it? A distinction to share that with a prince, wherein he
places himself on a level with the meanest of his subjects? (The
PRESIDENT bursts into a loud laugh. ) You may scoff--I must submit to it
in a father. With what countenance should I support the gaze of the
meanest laborer, who at least receives an undivided person as the portion
of his bride? With what countenance should I present myself before the
world? before the prince? nay, before the harlot herself, who seeks to
wash out in my shame the brandmarks of her honor?

PRESIDENT. Where in the world couldst thou collect such notions, boy?

FERDINAND. I implore you, father, by heaven and earth! By thus
sacrificing your only son you can never become so happy as you will make
him miserable! If my life can be a step to your advancement, dispose of
it. My life you gave me; and I will never hesitate a moment to sacrifice
it wholly to your welfare. But my honor, father! If you deprive me of
this, the giving me life was a mere trick of wanton cruelty, and I must
equally curse the parent and the pander.

PRESIDENT (tapping him on the shoulder in a friendly manner). That's as
it should be, my dear boy! Now I see that you are a brave and noble
fellow, and worthy of the first woman in the dukedom. You shall have
her. This very day you shall be affianced to the Countess of Ostheim.

FERDINAND (in new disorder). Is this, then, destined to be the hour of
my destruction?

PRESIDENT (regarding him with an eye of suspicion). In this union, I
imagine, you can have no objection on the score of honor?

FERDINAND. None, father, none whatever. Frederica of Ostheim would make
any other the happiest of men. (Aside, in the greatest agitation. ) His
kindness rends in pieces that remnant of my heart which his cruelty left
unwounded.

PRESIDENT (his eye still fixed upon him). I expect your gratitude,
Ferdinand!

FERDINAND (rushes towards him and kisses his hands). Father, your
goodness awakens every spark of sentiment in my bosom. Father! receive
my warmest thanks for your kind intentions. Your choice is
unexceptionable! But I cannot--I dare not--pity me, father, I never can
love the countess.

PRESIDENT (draws back). Ha! ha! now I've caught you, young gentleman!
The cunning fox has tumbled into the trap. Oh, you artful hypocrite! It
was not then honor which made you refuse Lady Milford? It was not the
woman, but the nuptials which alarmed you! (FERDINAND stands petrified
for a moment; then recovers himself and prepares to quit the chamber
hastily. ) Whither now? Stay, sir. Is this the respect due to your
father? (FERDINAND returns slowly. ) Her ladyship expects you. The duke
has my promise! Both court and city believe all is settled. If thou
makest me appear a liar, boy! If, before the duke--the lady--the court
and city--thou shouldst make me appear a liar! --tremble, boy! --or when I
have gained information of certain circumstances--how now? Why does the
color so suddenly forsake your cheeks?

FERDINAND (pale and trembling). How? What? Nothing--it is nothing, my
father!

PRESIDENT (casting upon him a dreadful look). Should there be cause. If
I should discover the source whence this obstinacy proceeds! Boy! boy!
the very suspicion drives me distracted! Leave me this moment. 'Tis now
the hour of parade. As soon as the word is given, go thou to her
ladyship. At my nod a dukedom trembles; we shall see whether a
disobedient son dare dispute my will! (Going, returns. ) Remember, sir!
fail not to wait on Lady Milford, or dread my anger!

[Exit.

FERDINAND (awakens, as if from a dream). Is he gone? Was that a
father's voice? Yes, I will go--I will see her--I will say such things
to her--hold such a mirror before her eyes. Then, base woman, shouldst
thou still demand my hand--in the presence of the assembled nobles, the
military, and the people--gird thyself with all the pride of thy native
Britain--I, a German youth, will spurn thee!

[Exit.




ACT II.

SCENE I. --A room in LADY MILFORD'S house. On the right of the stage
stands a sofa, on the left a pianoforte.

LADY MILFORD, in a loose but elegant negligee, is running her hand
over the keys of the pianoforte as SOPHY advances from the window.

SOPHY. The parade is over, and the officers are separating, but I see no
signs of the major.

LADY MILFORD (rises and walks up and down the room in visible agitation).
I know not what ails me to-day, Sophy! I never felt so before--you say
you do not see him! It is evident enough that he is by no means
impatient for this meeting--my heart feels oppressed as if by some heavy
crime. Go! Sophy, order the most spirited horse in the stable to be
saddled for me--I must away into the open air where I may look on the
blue sky and hear the busy hum of man.
I must dispel this gloominess by
change and motion.

SOPHY. If you feel out of spirits, my lady, why not invite company! Let
the prince give an entertainment here, or have the ombre table brought to
you. If the prince and all his court were at my beck and call I would
let no whim or fancy trouble me!

LADY MILFORD (throwing herself on the couch). Pray, spare me. I would
gladly give a jewel in exchange for every hour's respite from the
infliction of such company! I always have my rooms tapestried with these
creatures! Narrow-minded, miserable beings, who are quite shocked if by
chance a candid and heartfelt word should escape one's lips! and stand
aghast as though they saw an apparition; slaves, moved by a single
puppet-wire, which I can govern as easily as the threads of my
embroidery! What can I have in common with such insipid wretches, whose
souls, like their watches, are regulated by machinery? What pleasure can
I have in the society of people whose answers to my questions I know
beforehand? How can I hold communion with men who dare not venture on an
opinion of their own lest it should differ from mine! Away with them--I
care not to ride a horse that has not spirit enough to champ the bit!
(Goes to the window. )

SOPHY. But surely, my lady, you except the prince, the handsomest, the
wittiest, and the most gallant man in all his duchy.

LADY MILFORD (returning). Yes, in his duchy, that was well said--and it
is only a royal duchy, Sophy, that could in the least excuse my weakness.
You say the world envies me! Poor thing! It should rather pity me!
Believe me, of all who drink of the streams of royal bounty there is none
more miserable than the sovereign's favorite, for he who is great and
mighty in the eyes of others comes to her but as the humble suppliant!
It is true that by the talisman of his greatness he can realize every
wish of my heart as readily as the magician calls forth the fairy palace
from the depths of the earth! He can place the luxuries of both Indies
upon my table, turn the barren wilderness to a paradise, can bid the
broad rivers of his land play in triumphal arches over my path, or expend
all the hard-earned gains of his subjects in a single feu-de-joie to my
honor. But can he school his heart to respond to one great or ardent
emotion? Can he extort one noble thought from his weak and indigent
brain? Alas! my heart is thirsting amid all this ocean of splendor; what
avail, then, a thousand virtuous sentiments when I am only permitted to
indulge in the pleasures of the senses.

SOFHY (regarding her with surprise). Dear lady, you amaze me! how long
is it since I entered your service?

LADY MILFORD. Do you ask because this is the first day on which you have
learnt to know me? I have sold my honor to the prince, it is true, but
my heart is still my own--a heart, dear Sophy, which even yet may be
worth the acceptance of an honorable man--a heart over which the
pestilential blast of courtly corruption has passed as the breath which
for a moment dims the mirror's lustre. Believe me my spirit would long
since have revolted against this miserable thraldom could my ambition
have submitted to see another advanced to my place.

SOPHY. And could a heart like yours so readily surrender itself to mere
ambition?

LADY MILFORD (with energy). Has it not already been avenged? nay, is it
not even at this very moment making me pay a heavy atonement (with
emphasis laying her hand on SOPHY'S shoulder)? Believe me, Sophy, woman
has but to choose between ruling and serving, but the utmost joy of power
is a worthless possession if the mightier joy of being slave to the man
we love be denied us.

SOPHY. A truth, dear lady, which I could least of all have expected to
hear from your lips!

LADY MILFORD. And wherefore, Sophy? Does not woman show, by her
childish mode of swaying the sceptre of power, that she is only fit to go
in leading-strings! Have not my fickle humors--my eager pursuit of wild
dissipation--betrayed to you that I sought in these to stifle the still
wilder throbbings of my heart?

SOPHY (starting back with surprise). This from you, my lady?

LADY MILFORD (continuing with increasing energy). Appease these
throbbings. Give me the man in whom my thoughts are centered--the man I
adore, without whom life were worse than death. Let me but hear from his
lips that the tears of love with which my eyes are bedewed outvie the
gems that sparkle in my hair, and I will throw at the feet of the prince
his heart and his dukedom, and flee to the uttermost parts of the earth
with the man of my love!

SOPHY (looking at her in alarm). Heavens! my lady! control your
emotion----

LADY MILFORD (in surprise). You change color! To what have I given
utterance? Yet, since I have said thus much, let me say still more--let
my confidence be a pledge of your fidelity,--I will tell you all.

SOPHY (looking anxiously around). I fear my lady--I dread it--I have
heard enough!

LADY MILFORD. This alliance with the major--you, like the rest of the
world, believe to be the result of a court intrigue--Sophy, blush not--be
not ashamed of me--it is the work of--my love!

SOPHY. Heavens! As I suspected!

LADY MILFORD. Yes, Sophy, they are all deceived. The weak prince--the
diplomatic baron--the silly marshal--each and all of these are firmly
convinced that this marriage is a most infallible means of preserving me
to the prince, and of uniting us still more firmly! But this will prove
the very means of separating us forever, and bursting asunder these
execrable bonds. The cheater cheated--outwitted by a weak woman. Ye
yourselves are leading me to the man of my heart--this was all I sought.
Let him but once be mine--be but mine--then, oh, then, a long farewell to
all this despicable pomp!



SCENE II. --An old valet of the DUKE'S, with a casket of jewels. The
former.

VALET. His serene highness begs your ladyship's acceptance of these
jewels as a nuptial present. They have just arrived from Venice.

LADY MILFORD (opens the casket and starts back in astonishment). What
did these jewels cost the duke?

VALET. Nothing!

LADY MILFORD. Nothing! Are you beside yourself? (retreating a step or
two. ) Old man! you fix on me a look as though you would pierce me
through. Did you say these precious jewels cost nothing?

VALET. Yesterday seven thousand children of the land left their homes to
go to America--they pay for all.

LADY MILFORD (sets the casket suddenly down, and paces up and down the
room; after a pause, to the VALET). What distresses you, old man? you
are weeping!

VALET (wiping his eyes, and trembling violently). Yes, for these jewels.
My two sons are among the number.

LADY MILFORD. But they went not by compulsion?

VALET (laughing bitterly). Oh! dear no! they were all volunteers! There
were certainly some few forward lads who pushed to the front of the ranks
and inquired of the colonel at what price the prince sold his subjects
per yoke, upon which our gracious ruler ordered the regiments to be
marched to the parade, and the malcontents to be shot. We heard the
report of the muskets, and saw brains and blood spurting about us, while
the whole band shouted--"Hurrah for America! "

LADY MILFORD. And I heard nothing of all this! saw nothing!

VALET. No, most gracious lady, because you rode off to the bear-hunt
with his highness just at the moment the drum was beating for the march.
'Tis a pity your ladyship missed the pleasure of the sight--here, crying
children might be seen following their wretched father--there, a mother
distracted with grief was rushing forward to throw her tender infant
among the bristling bayonets--here, a bride and bridegroom were separated
with the sabre's stroke--and there, graybeards were seen to stand in
despair, and fling their very crutches after their sons in the New World
--and, in the midst of all this, the drums were beating loudly, that the
prayers and lamentations might not reach the Almighty ear.

LADY MILFORD (rising in violent emotion). Away with these jewels--their
rays pierce my bosom like the flames of hell. Moderate your grief, old
man. Your children shall be restored to you. You shall again clasp them
to your bosom.

VALET (with warmth). Yes, heaven knows! We shall meet again! As they
passed the city gates they turned round and cried aloud: "God bless our
wives and children--long life to our gracious sovereign. At the day of
judgment we shall all meet again! "

LADY MILFORD (walks up and down the room in great agitation). Horrible!
most horrible! --and they would persuade me that I had dried up all the
tears in the land. Now, indeed, my eyes are fearfully opened! Go--tell
the prince that I will thank him in person! (As the valet is going she
drops the purse into his hat. ) And take this as a recompense for the
truth you have revealed to me.

VALET (throws the purse with contempt on the table). Keep it, with your
other treasures. [Exit.

LADY MILFORD (looking after him in astonishment). Sophy, follow him,
and inquire his name. His sons shall be restored to him. (SOPHY goes.
LADY MILFORD becomes absorbed in thought. Pause. Then to SOPHY as she
returns. ) Was there not a report that some town on the frontier had
been destroyed by fire, and four hundred families reduced to beggary?
(She rings. )

SOPHY. What has made your ladyship just think of that? Yes--such was
certainly the fact, and most of these poor creatures are either compelled
to serve their creditors as bondsmen, or are dragging out their miserable
days in the depths of the royal silver mines.

Enter a SERVANT. What are your ladyship's commands?

LADY MILFORD (giving him the case of jewels). Carry this to my treasurer
without delay. Let the jewels be sold and the money distributed among
the four hundred families who were ruined by the fire.

SOPHY. Consider, my lady, the risk you run of displeasing his highness.

LADY MILFORD (with dignity). Should I encircle my brows with the curses
of his subjects? (Makes a sign to the servant, who goes away with the
jewel case. ) Wouldst thou have me dragged to the earth by the dreadful
weight of the tears of misery? Nay! Sophy, it is better far to wear
false jewels on the brow, and to have the consciousness of a good deed
within the breast!

SOPHY. But diamonds of such value! Why not rather give some that are
less precious? Truly, my lady, it is an unpardonable act.

LADY MILFORD. Foolish girl! For this deed more brilliants and pearls
will flow for me in one moment than kings ever wore in their richest
diadems! Ay, and infinitely more beautiful!

SERVANT enters. Major von Walter!

SOPHY (running hastily to the help of LADY MILFORD, who seems fainting).
Heavens, my lady, you change color!

LADY MILFORD. The first man who ever made me tremble. (To the SERVANT. )
I am not well--but stay--what said the major? --how? O Sophy! I look
sadly ill, do I not?

SOPHY. I entreat you, my lady, compose yourself.

SERVANT. Is it your ladyship's wish that I should deny you to the major?

LADY MILFORD (hesitating). Tell him--I shall be happy to see him. (Exit
SERVANT. ) What shall I say to him, Sophy? how shall I receive him? I
will be silent--alas! I fear he will despise my weakness. He will--ah,
me! what sad forebodings oppress my heart! You are going Sophy! stay,
yet--no, no--he comes--yes, stay, stay with me----

SOPHY. Collect yourself, my lady, the major----



SCENE III. --FERDINAND VON WALTER. The former.

FERDINAND (with a slight bow). I hope I do not interrupt your ladyship?

LADY MILFORD (with visible emotion).