from Canto XIV

91

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.

92

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.
     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.

93

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.
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.

94

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;
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?

95

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.
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.

96

I’ve also seen some female friends (‘tis odd,
     But true—as, if expedient, I could prove)
That faithful were through thick and thin, abroad,
     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.

97

Whether Don Juan and chaste Adeline
     Grew friends in this or any other sense,
Will be discuss’d 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.

98

Whether they rode, or walk’d, or studied Spanish
     To read Don Quixote in the original,
A pleasure before which all others vanish;
     Whether their talk was of the kind call’d “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.

99

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.

100

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—
It all sprung from a harmless game at billiards.