Who, indeed, that hath a mote in his eye, cannot still discern a huge beam in yours? You are in grievous need of a resident missionary, considering that you persist in obstinate schisms, and flaunt that exploded Orientalism, the Crescent, in the face and eyes of Christendom.
You are much more distant and reserved, O beguiler! than you pretend. Your temper is said to be volcanic.
You that were Diana! who is this Falstaffian, Toby Belchian, Kriss Kringlish person we see about your premises? He hangeth his great, ruddy, comfortable phiz out of your casements, and holdeth it sidewise with a wink or a leer. We look on him as an officious rascal. He peereth where you only, by privilege, have permission to enter. He hath the evil eye. He thinketh himself a proper substitute for you, and King of the Illuminari; he reproduceth your smile, and scattereth your largesses; he maketh faces--we say it shudderingly--at your worshippers below. Frequently hath he appropriated kisses that were blown to you personally, or consigned to you for delivery from one sweetheart to another.
O Lady, O Light-dispenser! think, we hereby beseech you, of the danger of his being taken for you! Picture the discomfiture of your minstrel, who, intoning a rapturous recital of your charms, and casting about for a sight of your delectable loveliness, is confronted instead with that broad, ingenuous vagabond! In some such despairing rage as the minstrel's must have been the inventor of the German tongue, who discarded all other chances of observation after once beholding this thing ycleped your MAN, and angrily insisted on "Der Mond"--the Moon, he--as the proper mode of speech.
Get you straightway a more acceptable minion, one of more chivalric habit, of more spare and ascetic exterior. Your credit and our comfort demand it. "Pray you, remember."
Less know we of your interminable starry neighbors. Is Mars civil, or heavy Saturn capable of laughter? Hath a comet vexed you,--that tireless incendiary? Doth Leo roar too loudly on your sensitive ear? We fancy that the Dipper is replenished frequently in your Ladyship's court; that the Milky Way is pleasantest of your pastures; that the Scorpion guardeth your palace gateway; and that Aquarius, be he not delinquent, tendeth your flower-beds.