1st Woman.  Plague on this watching! 
What work, to make a saint of a fine lady! 
See now, if she had been some labourer’s daughter,
She might have saved herself, for aught he cared;
But now—­

2d Woman.  Hush! here the master comes:  I hear him.—­

[Conrad enters.]

Con.  My peace, most holy, wise, and watchful wardens! 
She sleeps?  Well, what complaints have you to bring
Since last we met?  How? blowing up the fire? 
Cold is the true saint’s element—­he thrives
Like Alpine gentians, where the frost is keenest—­
For there Heaven’s nearest—­and the ether purest—­
[Aside] And he most bitter.

2d Woman.  Ah! sweet master, We are not yet as perfect as yourself.

Con.  But how has she behaved?

1st Woman.  Just like herself—­
Now ruffling up like any tourney queen;
Now weeping in dark corners; then next minute
Begging for penance on her knees.

2d Woman.  One trick’s cured;
That lust of giving; Isentrude and Guta,
The hussies, came here begging but yestreen,
Vowed they were starving.

Con.  Did she give to them?

2d Woman.  She told them that she dared not.

Con.  Good.  For them,
I will take measures that they shall not want: 
But see you tell her not:  she must be perfect.

1st Woman.  Indeed, there’s not much chance of that a while.  There’s others, might be saints, if they were young, And handsome, and had titles to their names, If they were helped toward heaven, now—­

Con.  Silence, horse-skull! 
Thank God, that you are allowed to use a finger
Towards building up His chosen tabernacle.

2d Woman.  I consider that she blasphemes the means of grace.

Con.  Eh? that’s a point, indeed.

2d Woman.  Why, yesterday,
Within the church, before a mighty crowd,
She mocked at all the lovely images,
And said ’the money had been better spent
On food and clothes, instead of paint and gilding: 
They were but pictures, whose reality
We ought to bear within us.’

Con.  Awful doctrine!

1st Woman.  Look at her carelessness, again—­the distaff
Or woolcomb in her hands, even on her bed. 
Then, when the work is done, she lets those nuns
Cheat her of half the price.

2d Woman.  The Aldenburgers.

Con.  Well, well, what more misdoings? [aside] Pah!  I am sick on’t. [Aloud] Go sit, and pray by her until she wakes.

]The women retire.  Conrad sits down by the fire.]

I am dwindling to a peddling chamber-chaplain,
Who hunts for crabs and ballads in maids’ sleeves,
I, who have shuffled kingdoms.  Oh! ’tis easy
To beget great deeds; but in the rearing of them—­
The threading in cold blood each mean detail,
And furzebrake of half-pertinent circumstance—­
There lies the self-denial.