Paulina

“ See, Camillo, would you not think it breathed? Her eye seems to have motion in it.” “I must draw the curtain, my liege,” said Paulina. “You are so transported, you will persuade yourself the statue lives.” “O, sweet Paulina,” said Leontes, “make me think so twenty years together! Still methinks there is an air comes from her. What fine chisel could ever yet cut breath? Let no man mock me, for I will kiss her.” “Good my lord, forbear!” said Paulina. “The ruddiness upon her lip is wet; you will stain your own with oily painting. ”

“ Say that you will be my wife, Paulina. I love you as few women are loved. I am rich, and have the power to remove you far from every association that is painful to you. Tell me that I may be the guardian of your future existence."
Paulina contemplated her lover for a few moments with singular earnestness. She was deeply impressed by his generous devotion, and she could not but compare this self-sacrificing love with the base selfishness of Reginald Eversleigh's conduct. ”

“ Paulina, or Lina—for by this endearing diminutive they familiarly called her—was a pretty, very pretty girl, in spite of red hair, which, since it has lost the favor some beauty, divine or [427] mortal, of classic days, won for it, is considered, if not a blemish, certainly not an attribute of beauty. Paulina's friends and lovers maintained that hers was getting darker every day, and that even were it fire-red, her soft, blue eyes, spirited, sweet mouth, coral lips, and exquisitely tinted skin would redeem it. ”

“ It seemed almost too wonderful to be true, that God should thus have used me to bring Paulina to Himself. Never had I felt more poor and mean and unworthy, yet never was I more truly thankful.
"And now I want to be a different sort of girl," continued Paulina. "I mean to try to be good for all I am worth, and you must help me, Nan. I am afraid I shall never be a real Christian, though."
"You are surely not going to be a sham one," I said. "You cannot be if Christ has you in His keeping."
"That is true," said Paulina. "Oh, Nan, life seems so much more to me now! ”

“ Bishop Eumenes, who had been elected in the spring Patriarch of the Christians of Alexandria, visited her oftener than usual during the summer when Paulina lived in her suburban villa. Paulina, it is true, had fancied she could do without his help, and that she could and must carry her task through to the end by herself; but the worthy old man had felt sympathetically drawn to the poor ill-guided child, and sought to soothe and calm her mind and show her the goal, towards which Paulina desired to lead her, in all its beauty. ”

“ Paulina does not fill any ostensible office near the person of the queen, but is a lady of high rank in the court—the wife of the Lord Antigones. She is a character strongly drawn from real and common life—a clever, generous, strong-minded, warmhearted woman, fearless in asserting the truth, firm in her sense of right, enthusiastic in all her affections: quick in thought, resolute in word, and energetic in action ”

“ Paulina took the new-born infant and, forcing herself into the king’s presence, notwithstanding her husband, fearing the king’s anger, endeavored to prevent her, she laid the babe at its father’s feet; and Paulina made a noble speech to the king in defense of Hermione, and she reproached him severely for his inhumanity and implored him to have mercy on his innocent wife and child. But Paulina’s spirited remonstrances only aggravated Leontes’s displeasure, and he ordered her husband Antigonus to take her from his presence. ”

“ That situation was in the household of Paulina Durski's father. Paulina was ten years of age, and I was appointed as her governess and companion. From that day to this, I have never left her. As much as I am capable of loving any one, I love her. But my mind has been embittered by the miseries of my girlhood, and I do not pretend to be capable of much womanly feeling. ”

“ The character of Paulina, in the Winter's Tale, though it has obtained but little notice, and no critical remark, (that I have seen,) is yet one of the striking beauties of the play: and it has its moral too. As we see running through the whole universe that principle of contrast which may be called the life of nature, so we behold it every where illustrated in Shakspeare: upon this principle he has placed Emilia beside Desdemona, the nurse beside Juliet; the clowns and dairy-maids, and the merry peddler thief Autolycus round Florizel and Perdita;—and made Paulina the friend of Hermione. ”

“ I felt in her—poor fatuous idiot that I was!—that lack of objective imagination which had always seemed to me to account, at least in part, for many of the so-called heroic qualities in women. When their feelings are involved they simply can’t look ahead. Her unfaltering logic notwithstanding, I felt this about Paulina as I listened. She had a specious air of knowing where she was going, but she didn’t. She seemed the genius of logic and understanding, but the demon of illusion spoke through her lips.... ”

“ Paulina stopped and Jannet sat quite still for a moment. Then she rose. “Thank you, Paulina, so much, for all that you have told me. I have told Uncle Pieter that I will make my home with him and not go back to school next winter, so I hope that you will like me at least as much as you do Jan. I’ll try to be as good as possible myself, but I have a lot to learn, I suppose. Did you like my mother, Paulina?” ”

“ Although it is honourable enough to be everywhere proclaimed, yet those who know nothing of lovers’ hearts often judge contrary to the truth, and thence come reports as mischievous as though they were true. I have been prompted to say this, and led to declare my love to you, because Paulina, feeling in her heart that I cannot love her, holds me in suspicion and does nought but watch my face wherever I may be. ”

“ Mount to the seat and paint as fast as you can, for if the painting is not finished before the stars come out, Peter will never come home again."
Paulina scrambled up; she took the palette in one hand, the brush in the other, and began to put on the colour as fast as she could. She did not take any pains, but dabbed away, beginning in the left-hand corner. She scarcely looked at what she was doing; but somehow or other it answered, and the picture progressed rapidly. Paulina herself was surprised, but she knew that she must lose no time, for the stars were only waiting for the twilight. ”

“ Paulina is very beautiful, no doubt; she has those Andalusian eyes and ancles which all the world talk about, but which all the world must see to feel the full effect of either. She has a charming manner—a glorious 'espiêglerie'—yes, that's the word! full of pretty repartee, and all that sort of thing—you understand me, Dick, or Don Ricardo, as she called you; but withal, I assure you, I should not like to enter for a Spanish wife, of all women in the world ”

“ Take it on her. Camillo and Polixenes
Laugh at me; make their pastime at my sorrow:
They should not laugh if I could reach them, nor
Shall she, within my power.
Enter Paulina carrying a baby, with Antigonus, lords and servants.
FIRST LORD.
You must not enter.
PAULINA.
Nay, rather, good my lords, be second to me:
Fear you his tyrannous passion more, alas,
Than the queen’s life? a gracious innocent soul,
More free than he is jealous.
ANTIGONUS.
That’s enough.
SERVANT.
Madam, he hath not slept tonight; commanded
None should come at him.
PAULINA.
Not so hot, good sir ”

“ Among Shakespeare's additions in the first part of the play we find the characters of the noble and resolute Paulina and her weakly good-natured husband. Paulina, who has been overlooked by both Mrs. Jameson and Heine in their descriptions of Shakespeare's feminine characters, is one of the most admirable and original figures he has put upon the stage. She has more courage than ten men, and possesses that natural eloquence and power of pathos which determined honesty and sound common sense can bestow upon a woman. She would go through fire and water for the queen whom she loves and trusts. ”

“ At nine, they pass, hand in hand,152 to Miss Paulina's own chamber, where the child's cot has long been established. May-blossom undressed, kissed, and blessed, creeps drowsily between its warm blankets, and is soon sound asleep. Miss Paulina, in her dressing-gown, broods over the dying fire, far into the night. Alas! have not all her best beloved gone from her? Why might not Heaven have spared to her this last—the one ewe lamb, so tenderly carried in her arms, and warmed in her lonely bosom? Why not ”

“ Here, while we honor her courage and her affection, we cannot help regretting her violence. We see, too, in Paulina, what we so often see in real life, that it is not those who are most susceptible in their own temper and feelings, who are most delicate and forbearing towards the feelings of others. ”

“ Paulina married Polyeuctes against her own choice, for she loved Roman Severus better. Her father had put his will upon her, and Paulina had filially obeyed in marrying Polyeuctes. Such are the relations of the different persons of the drama. It will be seen that there is ample room for the play of elevated and tragic passions. Paulina, in fact, is the lofty, the impossible, ideal of wifely and daughterly truth and devotion. Pagan though she is, she is pathetically constant, both to the husband that was forced upon her, and to the father that did the forcing ”

“ She is so mortally sensible and matter-of-fact about everything else.”
“That’s the very kind,” insisted Nell. “I don’t think that Paulina is so very smart; besides, Jan and Chick say that she is ‘queer in the bean’.”
Jannet laughed at this expression. “That sounds like Jan. He has all sorts of slang for every occasion. But I’m not so sure. Paulina may have been scared by things like this long before any of us came here, and you know how stories grow. I’m going to talk to Paulina myself. ”

“ To see the statue of our queen. Your gallery
Have we pass'd through, not without much content
In many singularities; but we saw not
That which my daughter came to look upon,
The statue of her mother.
PAULINA. As she liv'd peerless,
So her dead likeness, I do well believe,
Excels whatever yet you look'd upon
Or hand of man hath done; therefore I keep it
Lonely, apart. But here it is. Prepare
To see the life as lively mock'd as ever
Still sleep mock'd death. Behold; and say 'tis well.
[PAULINA draws a curtain, and discovers HERMIONE
standing like a statue]
I like your silence ”

“ Come in, and I will show him to you.”—“Stop, do stay a moment,” said Paulina; “I beg you will not give Fido to those wicked boys they will torment him to death. It was but the other day, some wicked boys fastened a tin-pot to a poor dog's tail, and then let him run, with it dragging after him, frightening the poor creature almost to death. ”

“ Paulina?” It being a matter of course that she would inquire into it. The girls often amused themselves by giving her blinding answers just to see how she would contrive to carry her point. I remember their having great fun doing this, just after William Henry went away to school. Lucy Maria said ’t was just like a conundrum to Mrs. Paulina, a great mammoth conundrum, and the poor thing must be told about “Old Uncle Wallace,” or she would wear herself out, wondering “how Mr. Carver could possibly afford the money.” ”

“ Paulina had great pleasure in procuring every comfort she could for her poor animals; and her papa and mamma, to encourage her kind and humane disposition, increased her pocket-money, that she might be able to purchase barley for her poultry, and seed for her birds: her brothers also, who were at school, often sent her presents for that purpose. As she grew up, her humanity was shewn to her fellow-creatures in distress, as much as it had been in her childhood to the dumb creation ”

“ for what is sweeter than to be so valued by one's wife that one becomes more valuable to oneself for this reason? Hence my dear Paulina is able to make me responsible, not only for her fears, but also for my own. ”

“ But Paulina had overheard and looked back over her shoulder. “We have no rats,” said she, “and rats don’t tiptoe down imaginary stairs. It was her again.”
Jan looked cross, but he said nothing further as Paulina rapidly walked toward the house. Jannet fancied that Jan did not like to have Paulina’s superstitions aired before the Clydes. There was enough talk in the neighborhood, in all probability.
Chick urged his horse on, passing Jannet and Nell, but Jan, as he followed, leaned over to Jannet. “Paulina is an old goose,” said he in a low tone. “Her imagination works all night. ”

“ LEONTES. There is no truth at all i' th' oracle.
The sessions shall proceed. This is mere falsehood.
Enter a SERVANT
SERVANT. My lord the King, the King!
LEONTES. What is the business?
SERVANT. O sir, I shall be hated to report it:
The Prince your son, with mere conceit and fear
Of the Queen's speed, is gone.
LEONTES. How! Gone?
SERVANT. Is dead.
LEONTES. Apollo's angry; and the heavens themselves
Do strike at my injustice. [HERMIONE swoons]
How now, there!
PAULINA. This news is mortal to the Queen. Look down
And see what death is doing. ”

“ Won by the beauty and the grandeur of the scene, Pauline forgot she was not alone, till turning, she suddenly became aware that while she scanned the face of nature her companion had been scanning hers. What he saw there she could not tell, but all restraint had vanished from his manner, all reticence from his speech, for with the old ardor in his eye, the old impetuosity in his voice, he said, leaning down as if to read her heart, “This is the moment I have waited for so long. For now you see what I see, that both have made a bitter blunder, and may yet repair it. ”