e opposite attractions, not only
successively, but at the same time; and a modified Don Juan
would grow up under his pen."[47]

This modified Don Juan is the spokesman of the poem: not the "splendid
devil" of Tirso de Molina, but a modern gentleman, living at Pornic, a
refined, cultured, musical, artistic and philosophical person, "of high
attainments, lofty aspirations, strong emotions, and capricious will."
Strolling through the fair with his wife, he expatiates on the charm of
a Bohemian existence, and, more particularly, on the charms of one
Fifine, a rope-dancer, whose performance he has witnessed. Urged by the
troubled look of his wife, he launches forth into an elaborate defence
of inconstancy in love, and consequently of the character of his
admiration for Fifine.

He starts by arguing:--

"That bodies show me minds,
That, through the outward sign, the inward grace allures,
And sparks from heaven transpierce earth's coarsest covertures,--
All by demonstrating the value of Fifine!"

He then applies his method to the whole of earthly life, finally
resolving it into the principle:--

"All's change, but permanence as well.

* * * * *

Truth inside, and outside, truth also; and between
Each, falsehood that is change, as truth is permanence.
The individual soul works through the shows of sense,
(Which, ever proving false, still promise to be true)
Up to an outer soul as individual too;
And, through the fleeting, lives to die into the fixed,
And reach at length 'God, man, or both together mixed.'"

Last of all, just as his speculations have come to an end in an earnest
profession of entire love to his wife, and they pause for a moment on
the threshold of the villa, he receives a note from Fifine.

"Oh, threaten no farewell! five minutes shall suffice
To clear the matter up. I go, and in a trice
Return; five minutes past, expect me! If in vain--
Why, slip from flesh and blood, and play the ghost again!"

He exceeds the allotted five minutes. Elvire takes him at his word; and,
as we seem to be told in the epilogue, husband and wife are reconciled
only in death.

Such is the barest outline of the structure and purport of the poem. But
no outline can convey much notion of the wide range, profound
significance and infinite ingenuity of the arguments; o