wilt suffer some beame of thy Majestie so to shine into my minde, that it may still depend confidently on thee.  Let calamitie be the exercise, but not the ouerthrow or my vertue; let their power preuaile, but preuaile not to destruction; let my greatnesse be their pray; let my paine bee the sweetnesse of there reuenge:  let them, (if so it seeme good vnto thee) vexe me with more and more punishment.  But, O Lord, let neuer their wickednesse haue such a hand, but that I may cary a pure minde in a pure body.  (And pausing a while.) And O most gracious Lord, (said she) what euer become of me, preserve the vertuous Musidorus.[76]

The “Arcadia” combines the elements of both the chivalric and the pastoral romance.  Sidney’s familiarity with the legends of Arthur, together with his own gallantry and love of adventure, peculiarly adapted him to describe martial scenes.  But the chivalry of Sir Philip is not more apparent where he describes the shock of arms than where, with such exquisite delicacy, he writes of women.  The student of English fiction would fain linger long over the pages which describe the loves of Pamela and Philoclea.  For when these pages are laid aside, it is long before he may again meet with the poetry, the manly and womanly sentiment, and the pure yet stirring passion which adorn the romance of Elizabeth’s Philip.  Three centuries have passed away since the “Arcadia” was written, and we who live at the end of this period not unjustly congratulate ourselves on our superior civilization and refinement.  And yet in all this time we have arrived of no higher conception of feminine virtue or chivalrous manhood than is to be found in this sixteenth-century romance, and during one half of these three hundred years there was to be seen so little trace of such a conception, whether in life or in literature, that the word love seemed to have lost its nobler meaning and to stand for no more than animal desire.  There is not in English fiction a more charming picture of feminine modesty than that of Pamela hiding her love for Musidorus.

How delightfull soeuer it was, my delight might well bee in my soule, but it neuer wente to looke out of the window to doe him any comforte.  But how much more I found reason to like him, the more I set all the strength of my minde to conceale it. * * * Full often hath my breast swollen with keeping my sighes imprisoned:  full often have the teares I draue back from mine eyes turned back to drowne my heart.  But, alas, what did that helpe poore Dorus?[77]

Hardly less beautiful is the gradual yielding, through pity, of Pamela’s maidenly heart.