_Maurice._ Look! I'll wear the flesh off my bones, but in pity spare me!
_Mrs. Harte._ And will you have no pity at all on us and on Owen here, that have slaved for you all our lives?
_Mrs. Harte._ You'll go back? 'Tis only a mistake?
_Maurice._ Great God of Heaven!...you'll kill me.
_Michael._ You'll go back, Maurice? The vocation will come to you in time with the help of God. It will, surely.
_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?
_Mrs. Harte._ I tell you, Maurice, I'd rather be lying dead a thousand times in the graveyard over Killnamartyra--
_Maurice._ Stop, Mother, stop! 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 examinations 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 welcome. 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 play is of that social importance that knows no limit of race or creed.
There is no boundary of land or time to the resistance of the human mind to coercion; it is worldwide. Equally so is the rebellion of youth against the tyranny of parents. But above all does this play mirror the self-centered, narrow, ambitious love of the mother, so disastrous to the happiness and peace of her child. For it is _Ellen Harte_, rather than the father, who forces _Maurice_ back to his studies. From whatever viewpoint, however, "Maurice Harte" be considered, it carries a dramatically powerful message of wide social significance.