Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (626 page)

GRAF.

He used to say himself he was too sane

To give his life away for excellence

Which yet must stand, an ivory statuette

Wrought to perfection through long lonely years,

Huddled in the mart of mediocrities.

He said, the very finest doing wins

The admiring only; but to leave undone,

Promise and not fulfill, like buried youth,

Wins all the envious, makes them sigh your name

As that fair Absent, blameless Possible,

Which could alone impassion them; and thus,

Serene negation has free gift of all,

Panting achievement struggles, is denied,

Or wins to lose again. What say you, Armgart?

Truth has rough flavours if we bite it through;

I think this sarcasm came from out its core

Of bitter irony.

ARMGART.

It is the truth

Mean souls select to feed upon. What then?

Their meanness is a truth, which I will spurn.

The praise I seek lives not in envious breath

Using my name to blight another’s deed.

I sing for love of song and that renown

Which is the spreading act, the world-wide share,

Of good that I was born with. Had I failed —

Well, that had been a truth most pitiable.

I cannot bear to think what life would be

With high hope shrunk to endurance, stunted aims

Like broken lances ground to eating-knives,

A self sunk down to look with level eyes

At low achievement, doomed from day to day

To distaste of its consciousness. But I —

GRAF.

Have won, not lost, in your decisive throw.

And I too glory in this issue; yet,

The public verdict has no potency

To sway my judgment of what Armgart is:

My pure delight in her would be but sullied,

If it o’erflowed with mixture of men’s praise.

And had she failed, I should have said, “ The pearl

Remains a pearl for me, reflects the light

With the same fitness that first charmed my gaze —

Is worth as fine a setting now as then.”

ARMGART (rising).

Oh, you are good! But why will you rehearse

The talk of cynics, who with insect eyes

Explore the secrets of the rubbish-heap?

I hate your epigrams and pointed saws

Whose narrow truth is but broad falsity.

Confess your friend was shallow.

GRAF.

I confess

Life is not rounded in an epigram.

And saying aught, we leave a world unsaid.

I quoted, merely to shape forth my thought

That high success has terrors when achieved —

Like preternatural spouses whose dire love

Hangs perilous on slight observances:

Whence it were possible that Armgart crowned

Might turn and listen to a pleading voice,

Though Armgart striving in the race was deaf.

You said you dared not think what life had been

Without the stamp of eminence; have you thought

How you will bear the poise of eminence

With dread of sliding? Paint the future out

As an unchecked and glorious career,

‘T will grow more strenuous by the very love

You bear to excellence, the very fate

Of human powers, which tread at every step

On possible verges.

ARMGART.

I accept the peril.

I choose to walk high with sublimer dread

Rather than crawl in safety. And, besides,

I am an artist as you are noble:

I ought to bear the burden of my rank.

GRAF.

Such parallels, dear Armgart, are but snares

To catch the mind with seeming argument —

Small baits of likeness ‘mid disparity.

Men rise the higher as their task is high,

The task being well achieved. A woman’s rank

Lies in the fullness of her womanhood:

Therein alone she is royal.

ARMGART.

Yes, I know

The oft-taught Gospel: “Woman, thy desire

Shall be that all superlatives on earth

Belong to men, save the one highest kind —

To be a mother. Thou shalt not desire

To do aught best save pure subservience:

Nature has willed it so!” O blessed Nature!

Let her be arbitress; she gave me voice

Such as she only gives a woman child,

Best of its kind, gave me ambition too,

That sense transcendent which can taste the joy

Of swaying multitudes, of being adored

For such achievement, needed excellence,

As man’s best art must wait for, or be dumb.

Men did not say, when I had sung last night,

“ ‘T was good, nay, wonderful, considering

She is a woman — and then turn to add,

“ Tenor or baritone had sung her songs

Better, of course: she’s but a woman spoiled.”

I beg your pardon, Graf, you said it.

GRAF.

No!

How should I say it, Armgart? I who own

The magic of your nature-given art

As sweetest effluence of your womanhood

“Which, being to my choice the best, must find

The best of utterance. But this I say:

Your fervid youth beguiles you; you mistake

A strain of lyric passion for a life

Which in the spending is a chronicle

With ugly pages. Trust me, Armgart, trust me;

Ambition exquisite as yours which soars

Toward something quintessential you call fame,

Is not robust enough for this gross world

Whose fame is dense with false and foolish breath.

Ardor, a-twin with nice refining thought,

Prepares a double pain. Pain had been saved,

Nay, purer glory reached, had you been throned

As woman only, holding all your art

As attribute to that dear sovereignty —

Concentring your power in home delights

Which penetrate and purify the world.

ARMGART.

What! leave the opera with my part ill-sung

While I was warbling in a drawing-room?

Sing in the chimney-corner to inspire

My husband reading news? Let the world hear

My music only in his morning speech

Less stammering than most honourable men’s?

No! tell me that my song is poor, my art

The piteous feat of weakness aping strength —

That were fit proem to your argument.

Till then, I am an artist by my birth —

By the same warrant that I am a woman

Nay, in the added rarer gift I see

Supreme vocation: if a conflict comes,

Perish — no, not the woman, but the joys

Which men make narrow by their narrowness.

Oh, I am happy! The great masters write

For women’s voices, and great Music wants me!

I need not crush myself within a mould

Of theory called Nature: I have room

To breathe and grow unstunted.

GRAF.

Armgart, hear me.

I meant not that our talk should hurry on

To such collision. Foresight of the ills

Thick shadowing your path, drew on my speech

Beyond intention. True, I came to ask

A great renunciation, but not this

Toward which my words at first perversely strayed,

As if in memory of their earlier suit,

Forgetful
              

Armgart, do you remember too? the suit

Had but postponement, was not quite disdained —

Was told to wait and learn — what it has learned —

A more submissive speech.

ARMGART (with some agitation) .

Then it forgot

Its lesson cruelly. As I remember,

‘T was not to speak save to the artist crowned,

Nor speak to her of casting off her crown.

GRAF.

Nor will it, Armgart. I come not to seek