No More Learning

His Power is this way tending. It befits us
To stand upon our guard, and with our swords
Defend the innocent.


MARMADUKE Lacy! we look
But at the surfaces of things; we hear
Of towns in flames, fields ravaged, young and old
Driven out in troops to want and nakedness;
Then grasp our swords and rush upon a cure
That flatters us, because it asks not thought:
The deeper malady is better hid;
The world is poisoned at the heart.


LACY What mean you?


WALLACE (whose eye has been fixed suspiciously upon OSWALD)
Ay, what is it you mean?


MARMADUKE Hark'ee, my Friends;--
[Appearing gay. ]
Were there a Man who, being weak and helpless
And most forlorn, should bribe a Mother, pressed
By penury, to yield him up her Daughter,
A little Infant, and instruct the Babe,
Prattling upon his knee, to call him Father--


LACY Why, if his heart be tender, that offence
I could forgive him.


MARMADUKE (going on)
And should he make the Child
An instrument of falsehood, should he teach her
To stretch her arms, and dim the gladsome light
Of infant playfulness with piteous looks
Of misery that was not--

LACY
Troth, 'tis hard--
But in a world like ours--


MARMADUKE (changing his tone)
This self-same Man--
Even while he printed kisses on the cheek
Of this poor Babe, and taught its innocent tongue
To lisp the name of Father--could he look
To the unnatural harvest of that time
When he should give her up, a Woman grown,
To him who bid the highest in the market
Of foul pollution--


LACY The whole visible world
Contains not such a Monster!


MARMADUKE For this purpose
Should he resolve to taint her Soul by means
Which bathe the limbs in sweat to think of them;
Should he, by tales which would draw tears from iron,
Work on her nature, and so turn compassion
And gratitude to ministers of vice,
And make the spotless spirit of filial love
Prime mover in a plot to damn his Victim
Both soul and body--


WALLACE 'Tis too horrible;
Oswald, what say you to it?


LACY Hew him down,
And fling him to the ravens.


MARMADUKE But his aspect
It is so meek, his countenance so venerable.


WALLACE (with an appearance of mistrust)
But how, what say you, Oswald?


LACY (at the same moment)
Stab him, were it
Before the Altar.


MARMADUKE What, if he were sick,
Tottering upon the very verge of life,
And old, and blind--


LACY Blind, say you?
OSWALD (coming forward)
Are we Men,
Or own we baby Spirits? Genuine courage
Is not an accidental quality,
A thing dependent for its casual birth
On opposition and impediment.
Wisdom, if Justice speak the word, beats down
The giant's strength; and, at the voice of Justice,
Spares not the worm. The giant and the worm--
She weighs them in one scale. The wiles of woman,
And craft of age, seducing reason, first
Made weakness a protection, and obscured
The moral shapes of things. His tender cries
And helpless innocence--do they protect
The infant lamb? and shall the infirmities,
Which have enabled this enormous Culprit
To perpetrate his crimes, serve as a Sanctuary
To cover him from punishment? Shame! --Justice,
Admitting no resistance, bends alike
The feeble and the strong. She needs not here
Her bonds and chains, which make the mighty feeble.
--We recognise in this old Man a victim
Prepared already for the sacrifice.


LACY By heaven, his words are reason!


OSWALD Yes, my Friends,
His countenance is meek and venerable;
And, by the Mass, to see him at his prayers! --
I am of flesh and blood, and may I perish
When my heart does not ache to think of it! --
Poor Victim! not a virtue under heaven
But what was made an engine to ensnare thee;
But yet I trust, Idonea, thou art safe.