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.
Pages:
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136