tch'd the wine flow, by himself but half tasted;
Heard the music, and yet miss'd the tune; who hath wasted
One part of life's grand possibilities:--friend,
That man will bear with him, be sure, to the end,
A blighted experience, a rancor within:
You may call it a virtue, I call it a sin.

JOHN.

I see you remember the cynical story
Of that wicked old piece Experience--a hoary
Lothario, whom dying, the priest by his bed
(Knowing well the unprincipled life he had led,
And observing, with no small amount of surprise,
Resignation and calm in the old sinner's eyes)
Ask'd if he had nothing that weigh'd on his mind:
"Well,... no,"... says Lothario, "I think not. I find,
On reviewing my life, which in most things was pleasant,
I never neglected, when once it was present,
An occasion of pleasing myself. On the whole,
I have naught to regret;"... and so, smiling, his soul
Took its flight from this world.

ALFRED.

Well, Regret or Remorse,
Which is best?

JOHN.

Why, Regret.

ALFRED.

No; Remorse, Jack, of course:
For the one is related, be sure, to the other.
Regret is a spiteful old maid: but her brother,
Remorse, though a widower certainly, yet
HAS been wed to young Pleasure. Dear Jack, hang Regret!

JOHN.

Bref! you mean, then, to go?

ALFRED.

Bref! I do.

JOHN.

One word... stay!
Are you really in love with Matilda?

ALFRED.

Love, eh?
What a question! Of course.

JOHN.

WERE you really in love
With Madame de Nevers?

ALFRED.

What; Lucile? No, by Jove,
Never REALLY.

JOHN.

She's pretty?

ALFRED.

Decidedly so.
At least, so she was, some ten summers ago.
As soft, and as sallow as Autumn--with hair
Neither black, nor yet brown, but that tinge which the air
Takes at eve in September, when night lingers lone
Through a vineyard, from beams of a slow-setting sun.
Eyes--the wistful gazelle's; the fine foot of a fairy;
And a hand