At Madame Tussaud's in Victorian Years

That same first fiddler who leads the orchestra to-night

Here fiddled four decades of years ago;

He bears the same babe-like smile of self-centred delight,

Same trinket on watch-chain, same ring on the hand with the bow.

But his face, if regarded, is woefully wanner, and drier,

And his once dark beard has grown straggling and gray;

Yet a blissful existence he seems to have led with his lyre,

In a trance of his own, where no wearing or tearing had sway.

Mid these wax figures, who nothing can do, it may seem

That to do but a little thing counts a great deal;

To be watched by kings, councillors, queens, may be flattering to him

With their glass eyes longing they too could wake notes that appeal.

* * *

Ah, but he played staunchly - that fiddler - whoever he was,

With the innocent heart and the soul-touching string:

May he find the Fair Haven! For did he not smile with good cause?

Yes; gamuts that graced forty years'-flight were not a small thing!

A quote from a Hardy novel

“Sometimes a woman's love of being loved gets the better of her conscience, and though she is agonized at the thought of treating a man cruelly, she encourages him to love her while she doesn't love him at all. Then, when she sees him suffering, her remorse sets in, and she does what she can to repair the wrong.” (Jude the Obscure)