Iolanthe's Wedding by Hermann Sudermann

So I let three days pass, gentlemen, to sleep on the matter -- then my two coach-horses into the harness -- my yellow trap -- and heigho for Krakowitz. Beautiful bit of property, no denying that. Somewhat run down, but full of possibilities. Lots of black fallow -- might do for winter kale or something of the sort. The wheat so-so. The cattle splendid.

The courtyard! Well, you know, a courtyard is like the human heart. Once you have learned to see into it, you cannot be bamboozled so easily. There are neglected hearts, but you can see gold nuggets peeping out through the dirt. Then there are hearts all done up and polished and smartened, hearts fed up, you might say, on arsenic. They glitter and glisten, and all you can say when you look at them is "By Jingo! " Yet they are rotten and mouldy. There are hearts in the ascending and descending scale, hearts of which the better is more hopeless than the much, much worse, because the worse improves while the other gradually declines. Well, and so on.