University of Virginia Library

ACT I.

Scene I.—A Garden.

Enter Raymond, conducted by Hope.
HOPE
Will you rest here?

RAYMOND
A little further on;
I want to feel the green beneath my feet,
To reach yon lilies if I stretch my hand,
To be quite sure that where I turn my face
The steady sunbeams walk across the lake;
Are we right now?

HOPE
Aye, to an inch. How well
Your fancy measures!

RAYMOND
O, my certainty!
My grasp is stronger than your glance. I work
Like a poor prisoner, scanning through and through
His little stock of unfamiliar words
Till they become a language. Step by step,
Testing remembrances, collecting facts,
Resolving doubts, I pass, slow, tranquil, sad,
And undisturbed by beauty or by fear,
Regions of wonder and appeal, where you,
Beset, enchanted, tempted, checked, compelled,
Gaze, linger, and learn nothing.

HOPE
Say it not!

RAYMOND
How? Tears in that true voice (touches her cheek)
.
And in those eyes!
O, how should eyes that see shed any tears!
What ails you?

HOPE
Nothing but the pang of words.
You break my heart, not meaning it. I know
All that you lose and all that I possess;
There's not an hour of our unequal day
When I forget that hard comparison;
The thought lies patient in my soul; the word
Wounds like a weapon.

RAYMOND
This my pain, in you
Becomes my healing. When you weep for me
You draw my tears away—my selfish heart
Beholds and comforts its reflected grief
And then forgets it for a little while
As if it were another's. Therefore, sweet,
Grudge not your gentle remedy, but give
Like a flower, drawing raindrops to its root
And giving blossoms to the sky.

HOPE
I give
Myself, you know it. Whatsoe'er in me
Has force or help, being mine must needs be yours;
Would it were better! Take me as I am,
A trinket for your neck, not even a gem,
Only a keepsake!

RAYMOND
Thus you play for ‘no’
And win it; ah, no trinket for my neck,
Staff for my hand—a blind man's metaphor
With twice the truth of fact! Come, change the strain
And tell me of the day.

HOPE
The day is fresh
As the first made—a new experiment
That wonders at itself—this early sky
Is vague and tender as an infant's love
When it cries ‘father’ to each face it meets:
There may be clouds to come; methinks they lurk
Under the fields of primrose light, not showing
Their grey crests to the sun; biding their time
With that slow air which trembles in the woods
Full of such whispered threats and promises
‘Trust me’ and ‘trust me not’ that no man knows
Which shall achieve fulfilment; all things wait
Upon the lips of Time, till he pronounce
The sentence of the day, ‘be fair or foul,’
So severing in a moment dark from light;
Meantime the hues of heaven and earth put on
A passion and a sweetness, as of those
Who think they shall die young, and so are set
To do their utmost with their little span;
I did not know suspense was beautiful
Till now.

RAYMOND
You paint me nothing. Try again,
The weather is not vaguer than your talk;
I want no poem, but a catalogue.

HOPE
Thus then again. Just at your feet, the grass
Hides yet some scattered dewdrops and is bright;
I read the landscape by this key, and trace
A dew-perspective to its farthest bound
In silvered lights and blue transparent shades
Sprinkled with morning; and the rounded edge
Of woods, and all the melting downward lines
Which prove the tender haze I cannot see.
On every branch of these near pines, the light
Lies like a stroke of frost; black underneath;
Between, the warm tree-colour burns its way,
But all the gathered sheaves of leafage keep
A strange moon-lustre of their own; the lake
Is a blank tremulous glitter, touched and flecked
With shadows of invisible reeds; beyond,
Stretches the folded distance, lucent, pale,
And tranquil as the breadths of holy thought
Whereon a saint reposes ere he dies.

RAYMOND
Right—in the distance only dwells Repose,
Near us we count the changes. No events?
Has the day's work begun for us alone?
Is all the world asleep?

HOPE
Yon watchful spire
Rings out its hymn scarce audible for us,
And tangled in the murmur of the wheel
Where the deft mill spins water—

RAYMOND
(interrupting)
Nay, no sounds!
I am your teacher there. In every note
I hear a hundred shades and feel them all,
Divining whence they rise and what they mean,
And how they blend themselves for general ears,
Rough unisons to them, to me a store
Of possible symphonies; a plot, a web,
With all its threadlets separate in my hand.
What else?

HOPE
Upon the lake a speck—dark—definite,
No shadow but a coming boat. It cuts
The sunshine like a new resistless thought
Passing through severed day dreams to its goal.
Now could I fancy, love, that you and I
Were two poor prisoners, watching anxiously
A freight of doom or freedom. Shall we say
That if it pass the stair it carries doom,
But if it pause there, freedom?

RAYMOND
As you will. (Aside)

She treads on truth, not knowing.
(Aloud)
Give account;
Where is this destiny?

HOPE
Beneath the limes;
Her prow is to the stair; nay, but she turns;
She mocked us with a brittle chance, which fell
Before we grasped it. We must set ourselves
To face the worst—she passes.

RAYMOND
By heaven's light,
Which I may never see, she shall not pass!
Look and be sure!

HOPE
Why, what a voice of fire!
You play too fiercely.

RAYMOND
Has she passed the stair?

HOPE
I told you—no, she cheats,—she tacks again;
Love, you are right—she lands!

RAYMOND
(clasping her)
Freedom and Hope!

Scene II.

Raymond—Hope—Avice.
Enter Avice.
AVICE
I came to summon you to breakfast, friends,
And I trod softly, not to break your dreams
Of ceaseless interchange of endless vows;
I find you shouting like a populace.
What is the matter?

RAYMOND
O, vast ignorance!
We change our vows with ‘tumult of acclaim’
As if we were in Paradise.

AVICE
You mock me
As is your custom. Why not say at once
You will not tell me what you shouted for?

RAYMOND
Unreasoning goddess! Said you not on Tuesday
You did not, would not, could not, know one phrase
Or fragment of Love's grammar? Can you judge
Whether I mock or not, explaining it?

AVICE
Why ‘goddess,’ sir

RAYMOND
Because you cannot reason:
Women, we know, are reasoning animals.

AVICE
The worse for them since they consort with men.

RAYMOND
A good retort! Say it again.

AVICE
I know
You must hear oft before you understand.

RAYMOND
Ah, for that cause you are so sweetly zealous
In talking to me always. Now I see!

AVICE
(angry)
I am sure I never wish to talk to you.

RAYMOND
Martyr, how nobly you deny yourself.

HOPE
O, Raymond, do not teaze her!

AVICE
Let it pass.
He has no power to teaze me.

RAYMOND
(imitating her voice) to Hope
Let him talk,
He knows how much I like it; (in his own voice)
why I told you
Only last night how thoroughly she likes me!

AVICE
Did he say so? Did he? I charge you, tell me!
Hope, did he say so when I was not by?
And did you suffer it?

HOPE
Indeed, dear cousin,
We would not hurt you by a word.

AVICE
Be honest
And face my question, do not fence with it;
If this be how you spend your tête-à-têtes
I'm near to scorning you. Why should you care,
You who would have us think you all the world
Each to the other, what another thinks
Of either? Does your sentiment grow flat
And must you spice it with a slander? Fie!
You flourish forth your banners of romance,
Devotion, grandeur, high bewilderment,
And in their shelter, when we think you sitting
Like angels, smoothing down each other's plumes,
You are but pecking at a poor girl's name
Like very common sparrows. I am proud
To be a dunce, below the elements
Of such a science.

HOPE
Will you listen?

RAYMOND
Tut!
She cannot. Take it not so gravely, Hope;
Make life a jest, a battle, or a dream,
Never a sermon! I can hear the laugh
Under this rage.

HOPE
It is a pain to me
That she should think we spoke of her unkindly.

AVICE
Why do you speak of me at all?

RAYMOND
The theme
Is tempting. Teach us (since you know so well
What lovers should not say), teach us our rules;
How should we talk?

AVICE
O, I can criticise
What I would never practise. Love should talk
Of nothing but itself, because, being blind,
It reaches only that which it can feel,
And should discuss no further. (To Hope.)
Why do you touch me?
I said no harm.

HOPE
'Tis nothing. Let it pass.

RAYMOND
I know her meaning and will read it to you.

HOPE
Nay, do not.

RAYMOND
But I will. (To Avice.)
She's such a despot
As would maim languages, and sweep from all
That dreadful word which means the thing I am.
You said that Love was blind, and so have sinned
Scaring me with an image of myself—
Ah, silly Hope! Ere I can be reminded
I must forget.

HOPE
O, if but for one hour
I could beguile you to forget your grief
No victor on his birthday, sunned and wreathed
With a land's homage, were so satisfied
With glory as my heart.

AVICE
I am here too long;
I can encounter mockery with scorn
And do it sweetly; when you lecture me,
I can be gay and talk of something else,
As birds would, if a choir sang psalms to them;
But when you come to turns of sentiment,
To ploughing up with sighs your tender souls
And bandying mutual sugarplums—I'm gone.
Sweet friends, enjoy yourselves, for Time is short,
And Love is lengthy as an Indian calm
To ships which fain would be at home. Farewell,
Joy keep you both!

[Exit Avice.
RAYMOND
There goes a little shrew!
And yet you say that all men flock to her,
Prizing her frown above a wealth of smiles.

HOPE
Her words are harder than her heart.

RAYMOND
They need be,
Else were her heart a nut to crack the steel;
I would not try it.

HOPE
She is beautiful
With more than woman's beauty. Every line
True as cold marble, clothed upon with light
Flushing with change and colour that would charm
In common lineaments; she moves before us
And we believe her not, but every day
Learn her anew, so far her actual face
Exceeds remembrance or conception.

RAYMOND
Pshaw!
Say't not to me. I know a little face
As far before hers as your speech is. Hark,
I'll tell you fairy tales. Say that a wand
Should wake these sleepers (touching his eyes)
, and give back the dawn
To this forgetful darkness, setting me
Once more a man among the multitudes
And capable as they; if then a host
Of rangèd aspects like a theatre
Watched my first flash of sight, I, with that flash,
Would seize your face among them, recognised
By its own lovely meaning.

HOPE
No, revealed
By love to love. I do not doubt you, dear,
Yet is she as far fairer than myself,
As some vast lily than the thready moss
Under your foot unseen; and yet I'll trust you;
You could not miss me, for your heart knows mine
Familiarly, as friends that live together
Know the least accent of each other's tones
Ere they discern a word. I am sure of you.

RAYMOND
Now go, you meek supremacy—the day
Speeds, and our father chides.

HOPE
Will not you come?

RAYMOND
I'll follow.

HOPE
But I cannot leave you here.

RAYMOND
What—here—where every grass-blade knows my foot!
Come, I am fixed.

HOPE
Dear Raymond, let me stay.

RAYMOND
Not a new minute! Such poor drifts of freedom,
And purpose, as my sorrow leaves to me
I'll hoard and use—you would not grudge me them
If you could count their fewness. I am bent
To find my way alone, and please myself
With hollow fancies that I know as much
As men with eyes. You linger?

HOPE
Nay, I am gone.

[Exit Hope. She remains close by the entrance, watching.
RAYMOND
Now, stay! I hardly trust her. All her life
Is full of tender frauds that cheat her friends
Out of their right to suffer. If she went
Fairly, she should be out of call—I'll try.
What! Hope!

Re-enter Hope instantly.
HOPE
Here Raymond—are you hurt?

RAYMOND
Ah, traitress!
You meant to lurk and watch about my steps
Like a deceitful angel. You shall promise;
I know you will not break your word—a woman
Lies seldom with her tongue. Give me your word
That you'll go thoroughly.

HOPE
Well—if I must.

RAYMOND
And put that foolish trouble from your voice.

HOPE
Do not be angry.

RAYMOND
Do not make me so.

HOPE
Not for a world.

RAYMOND
You do it for a whim.
Now would you welcome some swift accident
To teach me my dependence.

HOPE
O, for shame!
'Tis a man's charity to spare the fear
Which he despises. Only for myself
I lingered; now I leave you faithfully,
Be kind and follow soon—I shall scarce breathe
Till I receive you safe.

[Exit Hope.
RAYMOND
So then at last
The moment ripens to my grasp! I hear
The ruffled shingle and the parting fern
As that quick foot springs upward. Are you there?

Scene III.

Raymond—to him Carlton.
CARLTON
(taking Raymond's hand and looking earnestly at him)
How fare you? Am I welcome?

RAYMOND
I am as one
Who having pined across the long bare sea
Comes passionate and homesick to the shore
But dares not set his foot there lest he hear
That some dear place is empty, and for him
The fair familiar pleasantness of earth
Become a desolation.

CARLTON
You do well
To face the worst beforehand, trying thus
The strength of weapons which you may not need.

RAYMOND
I know their strength. There is no worst for him
Who has not seen the sun for twenty years.
Say that you fail—your time, your skill, your hope
Are wasted, and your wreath must lose a rose;
Full bitter are the tears of baffled men
Though shameless their defeat. Pity yourself!
But if you say to me those dreadful words
‘Be blind for ever! I can do no more!’
You do not thrust me to that outer dark,
You leave me only where I was before,
Where I am quite at home.

CARLTON
So would I have you;
Strong, tranquil, ready. I may tell you now
All things are ripe for our experiment
Time, practice, place. If you can go with me
To-day—

RAYMOND
I am ready now.

CARLTON
Why, so am I.

RAYMOND
But, Carlton, when we talked of this before
You told me of a man, blind like myself
For twenty years, and by the same disease,
Whose case at every point so matched with mine
That if you tried your remedy on him
And after came to me, we might be likened
To vessels measured in one mould, and you
Filling the first with hesitating hand
Can estimate the second to a drop.
Did you not tell me this?

CARLTON
'Tis true. I did.

RAYMOND
And have you tried this remedy on him?

CARLTON
I tried it.

RAYMOND
The result?

CARLTON
Almost I fear
To tell you.

RAYMOND
You have told it. He has heard
That sentence of irrevocable doom.
Tell me it was a chance, that prizes come
Most surely after blanks, that difference
Lurks undetected in the likest things,
And I, despairing not from his mishap,
May find a fairer close—but, tell the truth,
He shall be blind for ever.

CARLTON
Man, he sees! [Raymond starts and covers his face with his hands.

Why have you forced it from me? I was bent
To hold you from excess of confidence.
Men die of overfulness as of want.
Besides, that small invisible difference
May (mark, I do not say it will!) may lead
To different issues. Be not over-bold.
What, Raymond, what? You weep.

RAYMOND
(recovering himself)
No!

CARLTON
Yet be calm;
Your health demands it.

RAYMOND
Why do you handle me
As if I were a woman, or a drug
In your laboratory, to be tempered
And analysed at will? You are to blame:
You should have told the truth at once. I feel
(Not for myself—I am calm about myself)
But for the Heaven which fell upon that man
Whom I have always likened to myself,
In one tremendous moment. Did it crush him?
How did he bear it?

CARLTON
Reasonably, friend;
'Tis distance that enlarges hope or fear;
They dwindle as they reach us; like the clouds
Which cover half a sky, but at our feet
Break into trivial raindrops. He was calm;
Men should be calm—

RAYMOND
O, then he was a fool
Not worth a question. Talk of him no more.
Stupidity is calmness out of place.
There's no sublimity in sitting still
While the house burns; and that philosopher
Who sees the world created, and is calm,
Is capable of nothing. Out upon him!
I'd have the first half inch of visible green
Choke him with ecstasy! Come, will you lead me?
We should be going.

CARLTON
Does your father know?

RAYMOND
Nothing. I am a prudent man, and hold
Suspense when shared is doubled.

CARLTON
Say you so?
Yet should your prudence be compassionate.
Your father loves you and is old—'tis hard
To leave him in this blank.

RAYMOND
You check me well.
The burden of my hope disables me
From care for others. Will you write for me?

CARLTON
(takes out his tablets)
What shall I write?

RAYMOND
(dictating)

‘My dear friends. Do not be uneasy about me. I am gone on a good errand and under good care, and you shall hear from me very soon. I am safe and content.’

CARLTON
'Tis done—and here your name!

RAYMOND
I pray you guide my fingers to the place.
I have a secret sign, whereby they know
The words are mine. Is this below the name? [Carlton places a pen in his hand.

So, 'tis authenticated.

CARLTON
But, the way
To reach them?

RAYMOND
On the right, some yards away,
There stands a rustic seat.

CARLTON
'Tis found.

RAYMOND
There place it;
She left me there—lay it beneath a stone
For safety.

CARLTON
(laughing)
Your instructions are minute,
Nothing escapes you.

RAYMOND
No. It is my pride
To see with others' eyes effectively.

[Exeunt Carlton and Raymond.

Scene IV.

Enter Damer Grey and Hope, followed by Avice.
GREY
(speaking as he enters)
Safe here? A pretty tale! Safe anywhere!
Did you forget that he was blind? For shame!
You thought to meet him as we came? You thought!
I'll wager that you did not think at all!
Is this your care?

HOPE
O, father, chide me not!
He sent me from him.

GREY
Sent? Why did you go?
You should have made believe to go, and stayed
To watch his dangerous steps.

HOPE
Why, so I did,
But he suspected me.

GREY
You are so fine
You cannot brook suspicion; you would rather
See such a man whom you profess to love
Fall from a precipice, than stretch your hand
To save him, if he bids you not. Come now,
Do you know where you left him?

HOPE
Here.

GREY
Oh, well,
Very well—knowing that you left him here
You are content, although you find him not;
He was here—and he should be here—that's all—
And you are satisfied. But I, his father,
Only his father, am less rational.
Prove to me by a hundred arguments
That on this square of earth he ought to stand, [Striking the ground with his stick.

Must stand, has no escape from standing here,
Yet, if I stand here too, and see him not,
I feel a fault i' the logic. Raymond! Ho!
Answer! What, Raymond! Raymond!

HOPE
(wringing her hands)
Not a sound!
The path lies straight—that treacherous brink of fern
Was far behind—he could not face that way,
And darkness is familiar to his feet,
O! he's not lost, but gone!

GREY
This is mad talk.
Where? how? with whom? Would gipsies kidnap him,
Like some gay-snooded babe? You cannot think
To stay my hunger with such hollow trash;
Devise some better fancy.

[Hope weeps.
AVICE
(to Hope)
Why do you bear it?
You should not weep; you have no cause to weep;
No momentary speck of doubtful blame
Can touch you.

HOPE
O! I think not of myself,
The woe is here—it nothing comforts me
To say I did not bring it. If I knew him
Unhurt and happy, I could be content
To give him up for ever.

AVICE
Is that love?
I'd rather have the thing I love dead here [touching her breast

Than crowned in Germany.

HOPE
With that you prove
You never loved at all. What shall we do?
In this mere blank we breathe not. He has sunk
As a ship sinks, with all her moving freight
Of work, thought, hope, where the split water shuts,
A waste without a mark; he has ceased like sound
Which in the sudden silence leaves no trace.
We must go out and search the world for him,
Or wait at home and die for want of him;
We are so cloaked and fettered by despair
We cannot stir. Let us sit down awhile
And tell each other how we love him, tell
How noble and how tender was his soul,
How his blind life made music in our home
We would give all our eyes to hear again;
The dumb compulsion of such love as ours
May wring him back from the veiled destiny
Which holds him from us. Here I touched him last;
I will beseech the ground to give him back
Or gape and cover me.

[She throws herself on the ground.
GREY
Why, Hope—why, child—
Look up—he may be safe—break not my heart
For your sake also. I was all amazed
And knew not what I said.

HOPE
You said but truth;
I should have clung about his knees, and saved him
Against his will.

AVICE
Saved him from what? Heaven help us!
The creature's gone ten minutes, and you talk
As if you had the knife-hilt at your palm
Wherewith he slew himself. I'll lay my life
(Dearer than his) there's nought amiss with him.
I lose my patience; are you one of those
Who moan and make not? Here!

[Discovering the letter.
HOPE
(taking it with trembling hands)
O read it to me,
For I am blind as he is.

GREY
Let me have it. [He reads the letter aloud.

And here his secret sign! Safe and content!
Too hard a nut for me! And how content
Knowing we could not know that he was safe?
Is that his love and duty? I am ashamed
Of all this wasted agony.

HOPE
Rejoice
That it is wasted—do not judge him yet;
We shall hear all ere long. Let us go in
And muse together of this mystery,
Which, till he speaks again, we cannot pierce.

GREY
I'll not forgive him.

HOPE
Father!

GREY
Nay, I will not.

[Exeunt Grey and Hope, hanging on him.
AVICE
(alone, looking after them)
Aye, muse together, one in childish wrath
That beats it knows not what, and one in faith
As childish, trusting where it cannot know.
Well for them that one disentangled soul
Stands by, to smooth their web! Now, if I knew
Where he is gone! Why, Hope, who watches him
So closely that the germs of ungrown thought
Should not escape her, rests in ignorance!
What worth is Love that cannot read the heart
But stirs like a vague wind about the woods
Which, ceasing, leaves the shaken stems to feel
That proper life and movement of the sap
Which it affected not. I am full of words
Like philosophic preachers who make plain
The doctrine, though they never do the works;
I know the shape and trouble of this Love
Too well to trust my heart in reach of it.
But see, here comes my dream-fed boy, who waits
Through patient ages for a smile from Hope
And, winning it, is sadder than before
Because no blush goes with it. I'll stand by
And hear his murmurs.

(She draws back.)
Enter Vernon, with a rose.
VERNON
Three times she passed; three times I lacked the force
To give her this poor rose I plucked for her;
O fool! She heeds thee not enough to spurn thee;
The placid toleration of her smile
Grinds me to dust! Yet will I shrine her now
Above me, where she is, and gird her round
With homage and obeisance, such as maids
Pay to the limnèd image of their saint,
Nor seek return, except by miracle.
Alas, a weary life, that dwarfs the soul
Until it dies by wasting.

AVICE
(advancing)
Are you there?
O, you are sad to-day.

VERNON
You read my face
As the cliff-watchman reads the passing sail,
Named in a moment.

AVICE
Truly I am glad
When sympathy can do the work of knowledge.

VERNON
Since you discern my sorrow, tell its cause.

AVICE
'Tis a strange sorrow, if it springs from Hope,
Should not Hope cure it?

VERNON
Do not play with me.
Reveal me such a cure, and I—no, no,
I must be thankless for a boon so vast
That it leaves room for nothing but itself.

AVICE
Alas, poor Hope, I would she saw your heart
Beside that one she dotes on!

VERNON
Can it be
That having won the queen of all the world
He is but half her servant?

AVICE
We are seekers,
And what we have, we heed not. She's not wise.
Will she take counsel? She is at his neck
Hanging so closely that he sees her not;
She stands not in the picture of his life
Noted by light, or veiled by tempting shade,
But, if he find a flower, and stretch his hand
To pluck it, then he feels her; so his jewel
Becomes an obstacle. You shrink—I wound you
Against my will.

VERNON
That she should love him so
Hurts more than that he so should scorn her love.

AVICE
Hush, hush, you must not say I spoke of scorn;
He loves her with a brother's temperance,
Less than himself; and she is satisfied.
So would I be if I were sure of him,
But—

VERNON
Tell me how to help her!

AVICE
Do not hold me
So close. You hurt my hands.

VERNON
O pardon me.
You have such vivid speech, you show the brink
With her upon it, and I thought I saved her.
What can I do?

AVICE
Am I so poor a thing
That only by mistake my hand is pressed?
Tut! he perceives not.

VERNON
Hear me—

AVICE
Not a word;
I meant it not. Let us agree to watch;
Be this our compact—thoughts may strike aside,
And judgments fail, but let us watch for facts
Which cannot err. You that are Raymond's friend—
(Men show themselves to men) lead him to talk,
Keep back your heart and feel for his, and find
How he regards her; test him for her sake,
That when we know the truth with certainty
We may take counsel and devise for her
How she shall bear it.

VERNON
I'll be led by you.

AVICE
Take him alone, and touch him to the quick.
Match her with others, tempt him till he says
He wearies in the everlasting light
Which shows him all. 'Tis right that we should know.
Or if, thus catechized, his creed comes out
Immaculate (it will not) let us know it;
Herein we are Hope's servants in her sleep,
And when she wakes she thanks us.

VERNON
In that service
I cast away the life I value not,
And thank you that you show me how to give it.

[Exeunt.