Page:A Series of Plays on the Passions Volume 3.pdf/185

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Jer. (after a pause.) Art thou, entranced? art thou asleep? art thou still in those inward agonies of imagination? (Touching him softly.) Speak to me.

Ost. (starting up.) Are they come for me? They shall not yet: I'll strangle the first man that lays hold of me. (Grasping Jerome by the throat.)

Jer. Let go your hold, my Lord; I did but touch you gently to rouse you from your stupor. Ost. I have grasped thee, then, too roughly. But shrink not from me thus. Strong men have fallen by my arm, but a child might contend with me now. Jer. Forgive me, my Son, there was a wildness in your eyes that made me afraid.

Ost. Thou need'st not be afraid: thou art a good man, and hast days of life still before thee; thou need'st not be afraid.But, as thou art a good man, speak to me, I conjure thee, as a man, not as a monk: answer me as the true sense and reason of a man doth convince thee.

Jer. I will, my Son.

Ost. Dost thou in truth believe, that the very instant after life has left the body, we are forthwith awake and conscious in the world of Spirits? No intermediate state of slumbering insensibility between?