Upon her mind; the more so, as her breast
Was not at first too readily impressed.
LXXXIX
But when it was, she had that lurking Demon
Of double nature, and thus doubly named—
Firmness yclept in Heroes, Kings, and seamen,
That is, when they succeed; but greatly blamed
As Obstinacy, both in Men and Women,
Whene’er their triumph pales, or star is tamed:—
And ’twill perplex the casuist in morality
To fix the due bounds of this dangerous quality.
XC
Had Bonaparte won at Waterloo,
It had been firmness; now ’tis pertinacity:
Must the event decide between the two?
I leave it to your people of sagacity
To draw the line between the false and true,
If such can e’er be drawn by Man’s capacity:
My business is with Lady Adeline,
Who in her way too was a heroine.
XCI
She knew not her own heart; then how should I?
I think not she was then in love with Juan:
If so, she would have had the strength to fly
The wild sensation, unto her a new one:
She merely felt a common sympathy
(I will not say it was a false or true one)
In him, because she thought he was in danger—
Her husband’s friend—her own—young—and a stranger.
XCII
She was, or thought she was, his friend—and this
Without the farce of Friendship, or romance
Of Platonism, which leads so oft amiss
Ladies who have studied Friendship but in France
Or Germany, where people purely kiss.1094
To thus much Adeline would not advance;
But of such friendship as Man’s may to Man be
She was as capable as Woman can be.
XCIII
No doubt the secret influence of the Sex
Will there, as also in the ties of blood,
An innocent predominance annex,
And tune the concord to a finer mood.1095
If free from Passion, which all Friendship checks,
And your true feelings fully understood,
No friend like to a woman Earth discovers,
So that you have not been nor will be lovers.
XCIV
Love bears within its breast the very germ
Of Change; and how should this be otherwise?
That violent things more quickly find a term
Is shown through Nature’s whole analogies;1096
And how should the most fierce of all be firm?
Would you have endless lightning in the skies?
Methinks Love’s very title says enough:
How should “the tender passion” e’er be tough?
XCV
Alas! by all experience, seldom yet
(I merely quote what I have heard from many)
Had lovers not some reason to regret
The passion which made Solomon a zany.1097
I’ve also seen some wives (not to forget
The marriage state, the best or worst of any)
Who were the very paragons of wives,
Yet made the misery of at least two lives.1098
XCVI
I’ve also seen some female friends1099 (’tis odd,1100
But true—as, if expedient, I could prove)
That faithful were through thick and thin, abroad,1101
At home, far more than ever yet was Love—
Who did not quit me when Oppression trod
Upon me; whom no scandal could remove;
Who fought, and fight, in absence, too, my battles,
Despite the snake Society’s loud rattles.
XCVII
Whether Don Juan and chaste Adeline
Grew friends in this or any other sense,
Will be discussed hereafter, I opine:
At present I am glad of a pretence
To leave them hovering, as the effect is fine,
And keeps the atrocious reader in suspense;
The surest way—for ladies and for books—
To bait their tender—or their tenter—hooks.
XCVIII
Whether they rode, or walked, or studied Spanish,
To read Don Quixote in the original,
A pleasure before which all others vanish;
Whether their talk was of the kind called “small,”
Or serious, are the topics I must banish
To the next Canto; where perhaps I shall
Say something to the purpose, and display
Considerable talent in my way.
XCIX
Above all, I beg all men to forbear
Anticipating aught about the matter:
They’ll only make mistakes about the fair,
And Juan, too, especially the latter.
And I shall take a much more serious air
Than I have yet done, in this Epic Satire.
It is not clear that Adeline and Juan
Will fall; but if they do, ’twill be their ruin.
C
But great things spring from little:—Would you think,
That in our youth, as dangerous a passion
As e’er brought Man and Woman to the brink
Of ruin, rose from such a slight occasion,
As few would ever dream could form the link
Of such a sentimental situation?
You’ll never guess, I’ll bet you millions, milliards—1102
It all sprung from a harmless game at billiards.
CI
’Tis strange—but true; for Truth is always strange—
Stranger than fiction: if it could be told,
How much would novels gain by the exchange!
How differently the World would men behold!
How oft would Vice and Virtue places change!
The new world would be nothing to the old,
If some Columbus of the moral seas
Would show mankind their Souls’ antipodes.
CII
What “antres vast and deserts idle,”1103 then,
Would be discovered in the human soul!
What icebergs in the hearts of mighty men,
With self-love in the centre as their Pole!
What Anthropophagi are nine of ten
Of those who hold the kingdoms in control!
Were things but only called by their right name,
Caesar himself would be ashamed of Fame.1104
Canto XV
I
Ah!—What should follow slips from my reflection;
Whatever follows ne’ertheless may be
As à-propos of Hope or Retrospection,
As though the lurking thought had followed free.
All present life is but an Interjection,
An “Oh!” or “Ah!” of Joy or Misery,
Or a “Ha! ha!” or “Bah!”—a yawn, or “Pooh!”
Of which perhaps the latter is most true.
II
But, more or less, the whole’s a Syncopé
Or a Singultus—emblems of Emotion,
The grand Antithesis to great Ennui,
Wherewith we break our bubbles on the Ocean—
That Watery Outline of Eternity,
Or miniature, at least, as is my notion—
Which ministers unto the Soul’s delight,
In seeing matters which
