Ford was fairly certain he did have something of Donne's somewhere or other, but he wasn't familiar enough with any of the works to quote them. He wasn't sure he wanted to go find a poem titled To His Mistress Going to Bed and read it out loud, particularly if he wasn't sure exactly what was in it yet. He might have said something to that effect, except that then Wye asked him about mistresses, which entirely distracted him from the idea of poetry, erotic or otherwise. Ford snorted, like a laugh except entirely mirthless, and very nearly rolled his eyes.
"A mistress of my own?" he repeated dryly. "Yes, of course. An Italian soprano I put up in the most stylish neighborhood in London and send pearls to on the fortnight." The idea of someone like him having a mistress was patently ridiculous. Wye may have been a bit out of touch with the way things worked in this day and age, but he was neither stupid nor unobservant, so Ford was sure he hadn't meant the question seriously.
"Mistresses are for men with too much money and too few responsibilities," Ford pronounced, flipping back to the table of contents in Sonnets from the Portuguese. This opinion was born from the general categorization of women into three groups, in Ford's mind: proper women, like his sisters, who were delicate and modest and would never consent to be anyone's mistress; loose women, who attached no value to modesty and propriety and were inclined to trade romantic favors for material things like lavish apartments and nice dresses and fine wines; and working women, who existed in a category of their own and were almost more similar to men than either of the other two groups. It stood to reason based on what he thought of mistresses as a group that the process of having one would be expensive. It was the sort of thing people like Macnair could do, if they pleased, but it wasn't even within the realm of possibility for Ford.
It occurred to him only then that his thoughts about men who kept mistresses and the women who indulged them might say something about his character, as a person who had made plans to fool around with a soon-to-be-married man the night before his wedding. Probably something not very good.
"A mistress of my own?" he repeated dryly. "Yes, of course. An Italian soprano I put up in the most stylish neighborhood in London and send pearls to on the fortnight." The idea of someone like him having a mistress was patently ridiculous. Wye may have been a bit out of touch with the way things worked in this day and age, but he was neither stupid nor unobservant, so Ford was sure he hadn't meant the question seriously.
"Mistresses are for men with too much money and too few responsibilities," Ford pronounced, flipping back to the table of contents in Sonnets from the Portuguese. This opinion was born from the general categorization of women into three groups, in Ford's mind: proper women, like his sisters, who were delicate and modest and would never consent to be anyone's mistress; loose women, who attached no value to modesty and propriety and were inclined to trade romantic favors for material things like lavish apartments and nice dresses and fine wines; and working women, who existed in a category of their own and were almost more similar to men than either of the other two groups. It stood to reason based on what he thought of mistresses as a group that the process of having one would be expensive. It was the sort of thing people like Macnair could do, if they pleased, but it wasn't even within the realm of possibility for Ford.
It occurred to him only then that his thoughts about men who kept mistresses and the women who indulged them might say something about his character, as a person who had made plans to fool around with a soon-to-be-married man the night before his wedding. Probably something not very good.
Set by Lady!