VIOLA. 193 



"Mark it, Cesario, it is old and plain, 

 The spinsters and the knitters in the sun, 

 And the free maids, that uxave their thread with bones, 

 Do use to chaunt it." 



(They, the unconscious Fates, weaving the fair vanity of life 

 with death) ; and the burden of it is 



<; My part of Death, no one so true 

 Did shure it." 



Therefore she says, in the great first scene, "Was not this 

 love indeed ? " and in the less heeded closing one, her heart 

 then happy with the knitters in the sun, 



" And all those sayings will I over-swear, 

 And all those swearings keep as true in soul 

 As doth that orbed continent the Fire 

 That severs day from night." 



Or, at least, did once sever day from night, and perhaps does 

 still in Illyria. Old England must seek new images for her 

 loves from gas and electric sparks, not to say furnace fire. 



I am obliged, by press of other work, to set down these 

 notes in cruel shortness : and many a reader may be disposed 

 to question utterly the standard by which the measurement is 

 made. It will not be found, on reference to my other books, 

 that they encourage young ladies to go into convents ; or 

 undervalue the dignity of wives and mothers. But, as surely 

 as the sun does sever day from night, it will be found always 

 that the noblest and loveliest women are dutiful and religious 

 by continual nature ; and their passions are trained to obey 

 them ; like their dogs. Homer, indeed, loves Helen with all 

 his heart, and restores her, after all her naughtiness, to the 

 queenship of her household ; but he never thinks of her as 

 Penelope's equal, or Iphigenia's. Practically, in daily life, one 

 often sees married women as good as saints ; but rarely, I 

 think, unless they have a good deal to bear from their hus- 

 bands. Sometimes also, no doubt, the husbands have some 

 trouble in managing St. Cecilia or St. Elizabeth ; of which 

 questions I shall be obliged to speak more seriously in another 



