Could they expect me to look down on my own flesh and blood, on my son--my son Richmond--after a separation of years, and continue a statue?
Nay, I followed my paternal impulse.

Grant that the show was spoilt, does the Markgrafin insist on my having a bronze heart to carry on her pastime?
Why, naturally, I deplore a failure, let the cause be what it will.

Whose regrets can eclipse those of the principal actor?
Quotha! as our old Plays have it.

Regrets?
Did I not for fifteen minutes and more of mortal time sit in view of a multitude, motionless, I ask you, like a chiselled block of stone,--and the compact was one quarter of an hour, and no farther?
That was my stipulation.

I told her--I can hold out one quarter of an hour: I pledged myself to it.
Who, then, is to blame?
I was exposed to view twenty-three minutes, odd seconds.