The Robbers | Page 6

peasant on your estate in this, that he is not the father
of such a son. So long as you call him yours you are wretched. Your
misery will grow with his years--it will lay you in your grave.
OLD M. Oh! he has already reduced me to the decrepitude of
fourscore.
FRANCIS. Well, then--suppose you were to disown this son.
OLD M. (startled). Francis! Francis! what hast thou said!
FRANCIS. Is not your love for him the source of all your grief? Root
out this love, and he concerns you no longer. But for this weak and
reprehensible affection he would be dead to you;--as though he had
never been born. It is not flesh and blood, it is the heart that makes us
sons and fathers! Love him no more, and this monster ceases to be your
son, though he were cut out of your flesh. He has till now been the
apple of your eye; but if thine eye offend you, says Scripture, pluck it
out. It is better to enter heaven with one eye than hell with two! "It is
profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that
thy whole body should be cast into hell." These are the words of the
Bible!

OLD M. Wouldst thou have me curse my son?
FRANCIS. By no means, father. God forbid! But whom do you call
your son? Him to whom you have given life, and who in return does his
utmost to shorten yours.
OLD M. Oh, it is all too true! it is a judgment upon me. The Lord has
chosen him as his instrument.
FRANCIS. See how filially your bosom child behaves. He destroys you
by your own excess of paternal sympathy; murders you by means of the
very love you bear him--has coiled round a father's heart to crush it.
When you are laid beneath the turf he becomes lord of your possessions,
and master of his own will. That barrier removed, and the torrent of his
profligacy will rush on without control. Imagine yourself in his place.
How often he must wish his father under ground--and how often, too,
his brother--who so unmercifully impede the free course of his excesses.
But call you this a requital of love? Is this filial gratitude for a father's
tenderness? to sacrifice ten years of your life to the lewd pleasures of
an hour? in one voluptuous moment to stake the honor of an ancestry
which has stood unspotted through seven centuries? Do you call this a
son? Answer? Do you call this your son?
OLD M. An undutiful son! Alas! but still my child! my child!
FRANCIS. A most amiable and precious child--whose constant study is
to get rid of his father. Oh, that you could learn to see clearly! that the
film might be removed from your eyes! But your indulgence must
confirm him in his vices! your assistance tend to justify them.
Doubtless you will avert the curse of Heaven from his head, but on
your own, father--on yours--will it fall with twofold vengeance.
OLD M. Just! most just! Mine, mine be all the guilt!
FRANCIS. How many thousands who have drained the voluptuous
bowl of pleasure to the dregs have been reclaimed by suffering! And is
not the bodily pain which follows every excess a manifest declaration
of the divine will! And shall man dare to thwart this by an impious

exercise of affection? Shall a father ruin forever the pledge committed
to his charge? Consider, father, if you abandon him for a time to the
pressure of want will not he be obliged to turn from his wickedness and
repent? Otherwise, untaught even in the great school of adversity, he
must remain a confirmed reprobate? And then--woe to the father who
by a culpable tenderness bath frustrated the ordinances of a higher
wisdom! Well, father?
OLD M. I will write to him that I withdraw my protection.
FRANCIS. That would be wise and prudent.
OLD M. That he must never come into my sight again
FRANCIS. 'Twill have a most salutary effect.
OLD M. (tenderly). Until he reforms.
FRANCIS. Right, quite right. But suppose that he comes disguised in
the hypocrite's mask, implores your compassion with tears, and
wheedles from you a pardon, then quits you again on the morrow, and
jests at your weakness in the arms of his harlot. No, my father! He will
return of his own accord, when his conscience awakens him to
repentance.
OLD M. I will write to him, on the spot, to that effect.
FRANCIS. Stop, father, one word more. Your just indignation might
prompt reproaches too severe, words which might break his heart--and
then--do you not think that your deigning to write with your own hand
might be construed into an