Uncle. A man so near me, arm’d and masqu’d!
Barn. Nay, then there’s no retreat.
(Plucks a poniard from his bosom, and stabs him.)
Uncle. Oh! I am slain! All-gracious heaven regard the prayer of thy dying servant! Bless, with thy choicest blessings, my dearest nephew; forgive my murderer, and take my fleeting soul to endless mercy!
(Barnwell throws off his mask, runs to him, and, kneeling by him, raises and chafes him.)
Barn. Expiring saint! Oh, murder’d, martyr’d uncle! Lift up your dying eyes, and view your nephew in your murderer! O, do not look so tenderly upon me! Let indignation lighten from your eyes, and blast me e’re you die!—By Heaven, he weeps in pity of my woes. Tears,—tears for blood! The murder’d, in the agonies of death, weeps for his murderer.—Oh, speak your pious purpose, pronounce my pardon then—and take me with you!—He wou’d, but cannot. O why with such fond affection do you press my murdering hand!—What! will you kiss me! (Kisses him. Uncle groans and dies.) He’s gone forever—and oh! I follow. (Swoons away by his uncle’s body.) Do I still live to press the suffering bosom of the earth? Do I still breathe and taint with my infectious breath the wholesome air! Let Heaven from its high throne, in justice or in mercy, now look down on that dear murder’d saint, and me the murderer. And, if his vengeance spares, let pity strike and end my wretched being!—Murder the worst of crimes, and parricide the worst of murders, and this the worst of parricides! Cain, who stands on record from the birth of time, and must to its last final period, as accurs’d, slew a brother, favour’d above him. Detested Nero by another’s hand dispatched a mother that he fear’d and hated. But I, with my own hand, have murder’d a brother, mother, father, and a friend, most loving and belov’d. This execrable act of mine’s without a parallel. O may it ever stand alone—the last of murders, as it is the worst!
| The rich man thus, in torment and despair, Prefer’d his vain, but charitable prayer. The fool, his own soul lost, wou’d fain be wise For others good; but Heaven his suit denies. By laws and means well known we stand or fall, And one eternal rule remains for all. |
The End of the Third Act.[14]
Have you noticed that people under stress of strong emotion stop to depict their emotional condition, to analyze it, or neatly to apostrophize fate or Providence? The more real the emotion the more compact and connotative, usually, is its expression. People under high emotional strain who can tell you just what they ought to feel, or who describe elaborately what they are feeling are usually “indeed exceeding calm.” Dryden’s Lyndaraxa builded better than she knew when she said: