Page:The Mysterious Mother - Walpole (1781).djvu/27

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A TRAGEDY.
19

ACT the SECOND.

The SCENE continues.

Count EDMUND, FLORIAN.

EDMUND.Doubt not, my friend; Time's pencil, hardships, war,Some taste of pleasure too, have chas'd the bloomOf ruddy comeliness, and stamp'd this faceWith harsher lineaments, that well may mockThe prying of a mother's eye.—A mother,Thro' whose firm nerves tumultuous instinct's floodNe'er gush'd with eager eloquence, to tell her,This is your son! your heart's own voice proclaims him.
FLORIAN.If not her love, my lord, suspect her hatred.Those jarring passions spring from the same source:Hate is distemper'd love.
EDMUND.Hate is distemper'd love.Why should she hate me?For that my opening passion's swelling ardourPrompted congenial necessary joy,Was that a cause?—Nor was she then so rigid.No sanctified dissembler had possess'dHer scar'd imagination, teaching her,That holiness begins where nature ends.No, Florian, she herself was woman then;A sensual woman. Nor satiety,Sickness and age, and virtue's frowardness,

Had

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