HKB
Ah, now, are you really going to do nothing but play? And we all have been thinking, and thinking, all day, and hoping you would tell us things, and now--!
L. And now I am telling you things, and true things, and things good for you, and you won't believe me. You might as well have let me go to sleep at once, as I wanted to. (Endeavors again to make himself comfortable.)
ISABEL. Oh, no, no, you sha'n't go to sleep, you naughty!-- Kathleen, come here.
L. (knowing what he has to expect if KATHLEEN comes). Get away, Isabel, you're too heavy. (Sitting up.) What have I been saying?
DORA. I do believe he has been asleep all the time! You never heard anything like the things you've been saying.
L. Perhaps not. If you have heard them, and anything like them, it is all I want.
EGYPT. Yes, but we don't understand, and you know we don't; and we want to.
L. What did I say first?
DORA. That the first virtue of girls was wanting to go to balls.
L. I said nothing of the kind.
JESSIE. "Always wanting to dance," you said.
L. Yes, and that's true. Their first virtue is to be intensely happy;--so happy that they don't know what to do with themselves for happiness,--and dance, instead of walking. Don't you recollect "Louisa,"
"No fountain from a rocky cave E'er tripped with foot so free; She seemed as happy as a wave That dances on the sea."
A girl is always like that, when everything's right with her.
VIOLET. But, surely, one must be sad sometimes?
L. Yes, Violet and dull sometimes and stupid sometimes, and cross sometimes. What must be, must; but it is always either our own fault, or somebody else's. The last and worst thing that can be said of a nation is, that it has made its young girls sad, and weary.
MAY. But I am sure I have heard a great many good people speak against dancing?
L. Yes, May, but it does not follow they were wise as well as good. I suppose they think Jeremiah liked better to have to write Lamentations for his people, than to have to write that promise for them, which everybody seems to hurry past, that they may get on quickly to the verse about Rachel weeping for her children, though the verse they pass is the counter blessing to that one: "Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance; and both young men and old together, and I will turn their mourning into joy."
(The children get very serious, but look at each other, as if pleased.)
MARY. They understand now: but, do you know what you said next?
L. Yes, I was not more than half asleep. I said their second virtue was dressing.
MARY. Well! what did you mean by that?
L. What do YOU mean by dressing?
MARY. Wearing fine clothes.
L. Ah! there's the mistake. I mean wearing plain ones.
MARY. Yes, I daresay I but that's not what girls understand by dressing, you know.
L. I can't help that. If they understand by dressing, buying dresses, perhaps they also understand by drawing, buying pictures. But when I hear them say they can draw, I understand that they can make a drawing; and when I hear them say they can dress, I understand that they can make a dress and--which is quite as difficult--wear one.
DORA. I'm not sure about the making; for the wearing, we can all wear them--out, before anybody expects it.
EGYPT (aside to L., piteously). Indeed I have mended that torn flounce quite neatly; look if I haven't!
L. (aside, to EGYPT). All right; don't be afraid. (Aloud to DORA.) Yes, doubtless; but you know that is only a slow way of UNdressing.
DORA. Then, we are all to learn dress-making, are we?