That's what I've been telling you.
PARNELL. Too much to do yet. Even dying would take more time than I can
spare just now.
KATHARINE. But you must spare time to live, my dear--if you really wish
to.
PARNELL. Wish? I never wished it more--for now I _am_ living. I'm
awake. Doubts are over.
KATHARINE. King ... look at me! Don't take your eyes away, till I've
done.... One of those papers said (what others have been saying) that it
was I ... I ... need I go on?
PARNELL (_with grim tenderness_). Till you've done: you said ...
KATHARINE. I--that have ruined you.
PARNELL. That's just what they would say, of course. It's so easy: and
pleases--so many.
KATHARINE. All the same--by mere accident--mayn't it be true? It
_has_ happened, you know, sometimes, that love and politics haven't
quite gone together.
PARNELL. Love and politics never do. Do you think I've loved any of my
party-followers: that any of them have loved me?
KATHARINE. Doesn't--O'Kelly?
PARNELL. He's gone now--with the rest.
KATHARINE. Didn't Mr. Biggar?
PARNELL. Dead.... No.
KATHARINE. Still, you love--Ireland.
PARNELL. Not as she is to-day--so narrow and jealous, so stupid, so blind!
Has she anything alive in her now worth saving? That Ireland has got to
die; and, though it doesn't sound like it, this is the death-rattle
beginning. Ireland is going to fail, and deserves to fail. But another
Ireland won't fail. She's learning her lesson--or _will_ learn it, in
the grave.
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