What Surprises Us, However, Is This, Namely The
Remarkable Celerity With Which Miranda In A Few Hours Became So
Thoroughly Wide Awake To The Exigencies Of The Occasion In
Consequence Of Her Love For The Prince.
Prospero has set Ferdinand
to hump firewood out of the bush, and to pile it up for the use of
the cave.
Ferdinand is for the present a sort of cadet, a youth of
good family, without cash and unaccustomed to manual labour; his
unlucky stars have landed him on the island, and now it seems that he
"must remove some thousands of these logs and pile them up, upon a
sore injunction." Poor fellow! Miranda's heart bleeds for him. Her
"affections were most humble"; she had been content to take Ferdinand
on speculation. On first seeing him she had exclaimed, "I have no
ambition to see a goodlier man"; and it makes her blood boil to see
this divine creature compelled to such an ignominious and painful
labour. What is the family consumption of firewood to her? Let
Caliban do it; let Prospero do it; or make Ariel do it; let her do it
herself; or let the lightning come down and "burn up those logs you
are enjoined to pile"; - the logs themselves, while burning, would
weep for having wearied him. Come what would, it was a shame to make
Ferdinand work so hard, so she winds up thus: "My father is hard at
study; pray now rest yourself - HE'S SAFE FOR THESE THREE HOURS."
Safe - if she had only said that "papa was safe," the sentence would
have been purely modern, and have suited Thackeray as well as
Shakspeare.
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