Page:Emma Goldman - The Social Significance of the Modern Drama - 1914.djvu/277

 Mrs. Harte. If you don't how can I ever face outside this door or lift my head again? . . . How could I listen to the neighbors making pity for me, and many a one o' them only glad in their hearts? How could I ever face again into town o' Macroom?

Maurice. Oh, don't.

Mrs. Harte. I tell you, Maurice, I'd rather be lying dead a thousand times in the graveyard over Killnamartyra

Maurice. Stop, Mother, stop 1 I'll—I'll go back as—as you all wish it.

Nine months later there is general rejoicing at the Hartes': Maurice has passed his examina. tions with flying colors; he is about to be ordained, and he is to officiate at the wedding of his brother Owen and his wealthy bride.

Ellen Harte plans to give her son a royal wel. come. Great preparations are on foot to greet the return of Maurice. He comes back—not in the glory and triumph expected by his people, but a driveling idiot. His mental struggle, the agony of whipping himself to the hated task, proved too much for him, and Maurice is sacrificed on the altar, of superstition and submission to paternal authority.

In the whole range of the Irish drama " Maurice Harte " is the most Irish, because nowhere does Catholicism demand so many victims as in that unfortunate land. But in a deeper sense the