Lady S. You change the figure: The very rhapsody of Warwick Groom!
Sir T. Plastic as molten metal! Living hate Mine is, a deeply struck deliberate cancer In the heart, and half as old as I: half Of my life it is: I know it now mature That knew it not a-growing: wholesome hate! A wholesome cancer, a resourceful pain, A fount of passion!
Lady S. You forget yourself; For now you stare and pant like some insane Unhappy woman, sick with jealousy, Her strangled voice and prayer, "Oh, just to crush "My rival like a flea!"
Sir T. I understand. We know each other, Warwick Groom and I. No legendary friendship ever wove The lives of men in such a gallant web As ours displayed: the secrets of our hearts Were interchanged like goodly gifts that made The giver and receiver ache with joy: Our thoughts, our deeds, our sins were known and loved Of either; nothing irksome, trivial, dull Could happen day or night to him or me Since telling of it gave it import, grave Or humorous, subtle, sweet, or sad. Too well, Too infinitely well we knew each other! Grudge, longing, foible, vanity, conceit, Ambition, terror, cowardice, fancy, whim Revealed themselves in either's consciousness Beyond the scope and verge of comely minds, That there might still be something to confide, Some proof of new affection: once, at least, Two men should know each other inside out! To cut and carve a specimen, a corpse, A limbless, headless trunk, malodorous, foul, O'er-hacked, o'er-handled by anatomists, Tyros and demonstrators, makes a job Cleaner than knowing truly inside out The heart of man, the actual heart of man, Not in a general mass of studies culled From books, but in particular, one's friend. Had fortune not divided us I know Both had gone mad. He hates the thought of me, As I the thought of him--the natural end Of every intimacy pushed outside The limit. Souls are clad and should be seen In vestments only: things and thoughts there are We must not think: forbidden is the tree Of knowledge still to those that love themselves, Their friends, their art, their people and the world. This is a righteous hate in him and me.
Lady S. It desolates my heart to think it true! What shall I say to him?
Sir T. Give him some food, Some drink, some money.