Of the blood that feeds my heart, one drop in eight is black — bright red as the rest may be, that one drop poisons all the flood; those seven bright drops give me love like yours… |
Zoe: That — that is the ineffaceable curse of Cain. Of the blood that feeds my heart, one drop in eight is black — bright red as the rest may be, that one drop poisons all the flood; those seven bright drops give me love like yours — hope like yours — ambition like yours — life hung with passions like dewdrops on the morning flowers; but the one black drop gives me despair, for I’m an unclean thing — forbidden by the laws — I’m an Octoroon!
Dion Boucicault, The Octoroon: A Play, in Four Acts, (First Performed at the Winter Garden Theatre, New York, December, 1859), Act I. http://www2.latech.edu/~bmagee/louisiana_anthology/texts/boucicault/boucicault–octaroon.html.
Tags: Dion Boucicault