Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The poetical works of Alfred Tennyson. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material is part of the Elmer Belt Florence Nightingale collection. The original may be consulted at University of California Libraries.
818/870 page 782
![Enrold. More fool he ! What I that have been call'd a Socialist, A Communist, a Nihilist — what you will! — Dora. What are all these ? Harold. Utopian idiotcies. They did not last three Junes. Such rampant weeds Strangle each other, die and make the soil For Caesars, Cromwells, and Napoleons To root their power in. I have freed myself From all such dreams, and some will say because I have inherited my Uncle. Let them. But — shamed of you, my Empress! I should prize The pearl of Beauty, even if I found it Dark with the soot of slums. Dora. But I can tell you, We Steers are of old blood, tho' we be fallen. See there our shield. (Polnling to arms on mantel-piece.) For I have heard the Steers Had land in Saxon times; and your own name Of Harold sounds so English and so old I am sure vou must be proud of it. Harold.' NotI! As yet I scarcely feel it mine. I took it For some three thousand acres. I have land now And wealth, uud lay both at your feet. Dora. And w/iat was Your name before ? Harold. Come, come, my girl, enough Of this strange talk. I love you and you me. True, I have held opinions, hold some still. Which you would scarce approve of : for all that, I am a man not prone to jealousies. Caprices, humors, moods; but very ready To make allowances, and mighty slow To feel offences. Nay, I do believe I could forgive — well, almost anything — ^ And that more freely than your formal priest, Because I know more fully than he can What poor earthworms are all and each of us. Here crawling in this boundless Nature. Dora, If marriage ever brought a woman happi- ness I doubt not I can make you happy. Dora. You make ma Happy already. Harold. And I never said As much before to any woman living. Dora. No ? Harold. No! by this true kiss, you are the first I ever have loved truly. \_They kiss each other. Ena (with a wild cry). Piiilip Edgar ! Harold. The phantom cry! You — did you hear a cry ] Dora. She must be crying out Ed- gar in her sleep. Harold. Wlio must be crying out Edgar in her sleep ? Dora. Your pardon for a minute. She must be waked. Harold. Who must be waked ? Dora. I am not deaf: you fright me. What ails you 1 Harold. Speak. Dora. You know her, Eva. Harold. Eva! [Eva opens the door and stands in the entry. She! Eva. Make her happy, then, and I forgive you. [Falls dead. Dora. Happy! What? Edgar? Is it so ? Can it be ? They told me so. Yes, yes I I see it all now. 0 she has fainted. Sister, Eva, sister! He is yours again — he will love you again; 1 give him back to you again. Look up ! One word, or do but smile! Sweet, do you hearine f [Puts her hand on Eva's heart. There, there — the heart, O God ! — the poor young heart Broken at last — all still — and nothing left To live for. [Falls on body of her sister. Harold. Living . . . dead . . . She said all still. Nothing to live for. She — she knows me — now . . . (A pause.) She knew me from the first, she juggled with me. She hid this sister, told me she waa dead — I have wasted pity on her — not dead now — No ! acting, playing on me, both of them.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20452597_0818.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
