She has a sound judgement of
persons.
HOMEWARE: I should put it that she passes the Commissioners of Lunacy, on
the ground of her being a humorous damsel. Your predecessors had also
argued it with her; and they, too, discovered their enemy in a whimsical
feminine delicacy. Where is the difference between you? Evidently she
cannot perceive it, and I have to seek: You will have had many
conversations with Astraea?
ARDEN: I can say, that I am thrice the man I was before I had them.
HOMEWARE: You have gained in manhood from conversations with a widow in
her twenty-second year; and you want more of her.
ARDEN: As much as I want more wisdom.
HOMEWARE: You would call her your Muse?
ARDEN: So prosaic a creature as I would not dare to call her that.
HOMEWARE: You have the timely mantle of modesty, Mr. Arden. She has
prepared you for some of the tests with her uncle Homeware.
ARDEN: She warned me to be myself, without a spice of affectation.
HOMEWARE: No harder task could be set a young man in modern days.
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