LEONARD. You’d hardly believe it but I feel a kind of moral exaltation. [EDGAR laughs.] Oh! yes, Edgar, I know your vast superiority but in this you’re despicable through and through—all of you. No, Mother was beautifully kind for a moment just now. She asked Mary to sit down. [Impetuously.] Do you like staying here, Mary? Why don’t you go?
MARY. I want to hear what you say.
LEONARD. I’ve wronged you, as the saying is, but I don’t wrong you with every instinct, at every hour of the day. After all, I’m the only member of this family that’s achieved any kind of human relationship with you. To me you’re not a servant. Listen to this—listen to Shakespeare: [He declaims.]
‘Why sweat they under burdens? Let their beds
Be made as soft as yours, and let their palates
Be season’d with such viands. You will answer,
The slaves are ours.’
I suppose that practically I’m as bad as any of you. It’s just the idea.
MARY. I don’t understand what he’s talking about.
TIMBRELL. Nor anybody else.