OSWALD When from these forms I turned to contemplate The World's opinions and her usages, I seemed a Being who had passed alone Into a region of futurity, Whose natural element was freedom-- MARMADUKE Stop-- I may not, cannot, follow thee. OSWALD You must. I had been nourished by the sickly food Of popular applause. I now perceived That we are praised, only as men in us Do recognise some image of themselves, An abject counterpart of what they are, Or the empty thing that they would wish to be. I felt that merit has no surer test Than obloquy; that, if we wish to serve The world in substance, not deceive by show, We must become obnoxious to its hate, Or fear disguised in simulated scorn. MARMADUKE I pity, can forgive, you; but those wretches-- That monstrous perfidy! OSWALD Keep down your wrath. False Shame discarded, spurious Fame despised, Twin sisters both of Ignorance, I found Life stretched before me smooth as some broad way Cleared for a monarch's progress. Priests might spin Their veil, but not for me--'twas in fit place Among its kindred cobwebs. I had been, And in that dream had left my native land, One of Love's simple bondsmen--the soft chain Was off for ever; and the men, from whom This liberation came, you would destroy: Join me in thanks for their blind services. MARMADUKE 'Tis a strange aching that, when we would curse And cannot.--You have betrayed me--I have done-- I am content--I know that he is guiltless-- That both are guiltless, without spot or stain, Mutually consecrated. Poor old Man! And I had heart for this, because thou lovedst Her who from very infancy had been Light to thy path, warmth to thy blood!--Together [Turning to OSWALD.] We propped his steps, he leaned upon us both. OSWALD Ay, we are coupled by a chain of adamant; Let us be fellow-labourers, then, to enlarge Man's intellectual empire. We subsist In slavery; all is slavery; we receive Laws, but we ask not whence those laws have come; We need an inward sting to goad us on. MARMADUKE Have you betrayed me? Speak to that.