ll help to bear it, Sir John, take all, or half, for
easing me of the carriage.

_Fal._ Sir, I know not how I may deserve to be your
porter.

_Ford._ I will tell you, sir, if you will give me the hearing. 160

_Fal._ Speak, good Master Brook: I shall be glad to be
your servant.

_Ford._ Sir, I hear you are a scholar,--I will be brief with
you,--and you have been a man long known to me, though
I had never so good means, as desire, to make myself acquainted 165
with you. I shall discover a thing to you, wherein
I must very much lay open mine own imperfection: but,
good Sir John, as you have one eye upon my follies, as you
hear them unfolded, turn another into the register of your
own; that I may pass with a reproof the easier, sith you 170
yourself know how easy it is to be such an offender.

_Fal._ Very well, sir; proceed.

_Ford._ There is a gentlewoman in this town; her husband's
name is Ford.

_Fal._ Well, sir. 175

_Ford._ I have long loved her, and, I protest to you, bestowed
much on her; followed her with a doting observance;
engrossed opportunities to meet her; fee'd every slight occasion
that could but niggardly give me sight of her; not only
bought many presents to give her, but have given largely to 180
many to know what she would have given; briefly, I have
pursued her as love hath pursued me; which hath been on
the wing of all occasions. But whatsoever I have merited,
either in my mind or in my means, meed, I am sure, I have
received none; unless experience be a jewel that I have 185
purchased at an infinite rate, and that hath taught me to
say this:
'Love like a shadow flies when substance love pursues;
Pursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues.'

_Fal._ Have you received no promise of satisfaction at 190
her hands?

_Ford._ Never.

_Fal._ Have you importuned her to such a purpose?

_Ford._ Never.

_Fal._ Of what quality was your love, then? 195

_Ford._ Like a fair house built on another man's ground;
so that I have lost my edifice by mistaking the place where
I erected it.

_Fal._ To what purpose have you unfolded this to me?

_Ford._ When I have told you that, I have told you all. 200
Some say, that though she appear honest to me, yet in
other places she enlargeth her mirth so far that there is
shrewd construction made of her. Now, Sir John