Orlando. But will my Rosalind do so?
Rosalind. By my life she will do as I do.
The silent and retired character of Celia is a necessary relief to
the provoking loquacity of Rosalind, nor can anything be better
conceived or more beautifully described than the mutual affection
between the two cousins:
--We still have slept together,
Rose at an instant, learn'd, play'd, eat together,
And wheresoe'er we went, like Juno's swans,
Still we went coupled and inseparable.
The unrequited love of Silvius for Phebe shows the perversity of
this passion in the commonest scenes of life, and the rubs and stops
which nature throws in its way, where fortune has placed none.
Touchstone is not in love, but he will have a mistress as a subject
for the exercise of his grotesque humour, and to show his contempt
for the passion, by his indifference about the person. He is a rare
fellow. He is a mixture of the ancient cynic philosopher with the
modern buffoon, and turns folly into wit, and wit into folly, just
as the fit takes him. His courtship of Audrey not only throws a
degree of ridicule on the state of wedlock itself, but he is equally
an enemy to the prejudices of opinion in other respects. The lofty
tone of enthusiasm, which the Duke and his companions in exile
spread over the stillness and solitude of a country life, receives a
pleasant shock from Touchstone's sceptical determination of the
question.
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