No More Learning

OSWALD _Now_ would you? and for ever? --My young Friend,
As time advances either we become
The prey or masters of our own past deeds.
Fellowship we _must_ have, willing or no;
And if good Angels fail, slack in their duty,
Substitutes, turn our faces where we may,
Are still forthcoming; some which, though they bear
Ill names, can render no ill services,
In recompense for what themselves required.
So meet extremes in this mysterious world,
And opposites thus melt into each other.


MARMADUKE Time, since Man first drew breath, has never moved
With such a weight upon his wings as now;
But they will soon be lightened.


OSWALD Ay, look up--
Cast round you your mind's eye, and you will learn
Fortitude is the child of Enterprise:
Great actions move our admiration, chiefly
Because they carry in themselves an earnest
That we can suffer greatly.


MARMADUKE Very true.


OSWALD Action is transitory--a step, a blow,
The motion of a muscle--this way or that--
'Tis done, and in the after-vacancy
We wonder at ourselves like men betrayed:
Suffering is permanent, obscure and dark,
And shares the nature of infinity.


MARMADUKE Truth--and I feel it.


OSWALD What! if you had bid
Eternal farewell to unmingled joy
And the light dancing of the thoughtless heart;
It is the toy of fools, and little fit
For such a world as this. The wise abjure
All thoughts whose idle composition lives
In the entire forgetfulness of pain.
--I see I have disturbed you.


MARMADUKE By no means.
OSWALD Compassion! --pity! --pride can do without them;
And what if you should never know them more! --
He is a puny soul who, feeling pain,
Finds ease because another feels it too.
If e'er I open out this heart of mine
It shall be for a nobler end--to teach
And not to purchase puling sympathy.
--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.