THE DRAMA IN RELATION TO TRUTH 367 



Queen will produce. As she cries, "See the Queen!" Norbert 

 notices that the Queen is grasping the balcony. He addresses 

 her: "Madam why grasp you thus the balcony? Have I 

 done ill? Have I not spoken truth? How could I other?" 

 At the end he says, "I am love and cannot change: love's self 

 is at your feet!" As death is nearing, he reassures Constance, 

 "Sweet, never fear what she can do! We are past harm now. 

 . . . Men have died trying to find this place, which we have 

 found." 



Here was the mutual recognition of the high abstractions 

 of love and truth : indestructible ideals which even death could 

 not shatter. 



Many quotations might be made from the dramas of Brown- 

 ing in illustration of the necessity to be through and through 

 a seeker of truth. One more illustration will suffice. The 

 scene is after the murder of Henry Mertoun. Mildred asks, 



" You let him try to give 

 The story of our love and ignorance, 

 And the brief madness and the long despair 

 You let him plead all this, because your code 

 Of honor bids you hear before you strike." 



And Tresham answers, 



"No! No! 



Had I but heard him had I let him speak 

 Half the truth less had I looked long on him 

 I had desisted! Why, as he lay there, 

 The moon on his flushed cheek, I gathered all 

 The story ere he told it: I saw through 

 The troubled surface of his crime and yours 

 A depth of purity immovable; 

 Had I but glanced, where all seemed turbidest 

 Had gleamed some inlet to the calm beneath; 

 I would not glance: my punishment 's at hand 

 There, Mildred, is the truth!" 



There are probably few things society at large is less will- 

 ing to do than to hear and accept the truth. Public opinion 

 and conventionality more often than not serve as veneering 

 to right and direct vision. This state of affairs is taken up by 



