No More Learning

--Nay, you are pale.


MARMADUKE
It may be so.


OSWALD Remorse--
It cannot live with thought; think on, think on,
And it will die. What! in this universe,
Where the least things control the greatest, where
The faintest breath that breathes can move a world;
What! feel remorse, where, if a cat had sneezed,
A leaf had fallen, the thing had never been
Whose very shadow gnaws us to the vitals.


MARMADUKE Now, whither are you wandering? That a man
So used to suit his language to the time,
Should thus so widely differ from himself--
It is most strange.


OSWALD Murder! --what's in the word! --
I have no cases by me ready made
To fit all deeds. Carry him to the Camp! --
A shallow project;--you of late have seen
More deeply, taught us that the institutes
Of Nature, by a cunning usurpation
Banished from human intercourse, exist
Only in our relations to the brutes
That make the fields their dwelling. If a snake
Crawl from beneath our feet we do not ask
A license to destroy him: our good governors
Hedge in the life of every pest and plague
That bears the shape of man; and for what purpose,
But to protect themselves from extirpation? --
This flimsy barrier you have overleaped.
MARMADUKE My Office is fulfilled--the Man is now
Delivered to the Judge of all things.


OSWALD
Dead!

MARMADUKE I have borne my burthen to its destined end.


OSWALD This instant we'll return to our Companions--
Oh how I long to see their faces again!


[Enter IDONEA with Pilgrims who continue their journey. ]


IDONEA (after some time)
What, Marmaduke! now thou art mine for ever.
And Oswald, too!
(To MARMADUKE. ) On will we to my Father
With the glad tidings which this day hath brought;
We'll go together, and, such proof received
Of his own rights restored, his gratitude
To God above will make him feel for ours.


OSWALD I interrupt you?


IDONEA Think not so.


MARMADUKE Idonea,
That I should ever live to see this moment!


IDONEA Forgive me. --Oswald knows it all--he knows,
Each word of that unhappy letter fell
As a blood drop from my heart.


OSWALD 'Twas even so.