Floyd Dell

“ I wish to speak with the Queen.
THE QUEEN. (to the fool) No, stay. (To the Prince) It is not necessary for you to speak. You wish to tell me that the kisses you had from me were so sweet that you would like to buy some more, and are willing to put off your journey for a while.
THE PRINCE. I have given up my journey for ever. I know that the only thing that is real in all the world is love. You are scornful. But I have neither pride nor shame. I kneel at your feet, and beg you to forgive me for my folly.
He kneels. ”

“ For the Theatre, as the original source of all the arts, the spring from which half a hundred streams have poured, into the separate arts of music, dancing, singing, poetry, pageantry, and what not—the Theatre in its historic aspect as the spirit of communal festivity—is significant to us not as the vehicle of a so-called dramatic art, separate and distinct from the arts which go to make it up, but rather as the institution which preserves the memory of the common origin of all these arts and which still has the power to unite them in the service of a common purpose. ”

“ Oh, she is coming, the dancer of the future; the free spirit, who will inhabit the body of new women; more glorious than any woman that has yet been; more beautiful than the Egyptian, than the Greek, the early Italian, than all women of past centuries—the highest intelligence in the freest body! ”

“ If you are wise, you will build yourselves a little nest secretly in the woods, away from civilization, and you will run away together to that nest whenever you are in the mood. A nest so small that it will hold only two beings and one thought—the thought of love. And then you will come back refreshed to civilization, where every soul is different from every other soul—you will let each other alone, forget each other, and do your own work in peace. ”

“ Felix’s gaze went to that far white beacon with a sense of return to his own world—and with a sense of profound release in that return.... For there was a world besides the world of daylit reality; a world not of work and wages, of code and custom, of law and habit; another world besides that in which men and women customarily dwelt—yes, there was this world lit by the changing and ranging moon! ”

“ And this Turkish tableau has its dignity too, For is not the whole Oriental system designed in a spirit of reverence for women as women? Because they are the sacred essels of life, they must be set apart from the profane uses of the world. They must be housed by themselves, in a quiet to which the din of commerce and politics may not penetrate. And when their master comes to them after the sordid business of the day, he must not bring to them his tired thoughts, the stale echoes of his day’s work, but only a tender and passionate appreciation of their loveliness. ”

“ In a word, the home is a little dull.
When you have got a woman in a box, and you pay rent on the box, her relationship to you insensibly changes character. It loses the fine excitement of democracy. It ceases to be companionship, for companionship is only possible in a democracy. It is no longer a sharing of life together—it is a breaking of life apart. Half a life—cooking, clothes, and children; half a life—business, politics, and baseball. It doesn’t make much difference which is the poorer half. Either half, when it comes to life, is very near to none at all.
Of course, this artificial distinction does not strictly obtain in any particular marriage. ”

“ The two great riddles of the world today are machinery and woman. They are two unsolved questions which must be solved: and the answers may be, for all we know, tragic. Meanwhile, we bend our intelligences to the task of discovering what they can mean—what they should mean—to the world. In them lie hidden the possibilities of failure or happiness for the human race. What the future will be, depends on these two things—machinery and women.
Of these riddles, a famous painting and a familiar tool may serve us for the moment as symbols. ”

“ THE QUEEN. And now you are afraid to change your mind?
THE PRINCE. Do you think a brave man changes his mind for pleasure's sake?
THE QUEEN. Forgive me. If it is your happiness to go on, to what end I do not know, I will let you. I do not wish to make you unhappy. But I would give you something to take with you, one more flower of my garden, an unfading rose that shall be like a bright memory of me in your heart always. Will you take it?
She leads him back into the palace. The sailor enters, supported by the fool. ”

“ He knows that he has got out of the workers the utmost that their slave psychology will permit. He knows that there is no use to go on telling them that the business is their affair. He knows that the only thing left to be done is to make it their affair—to put into their collective control not only wages and hours, but what they create and how they create it. The job must be theirs before they can put into it the energy of free men. Their creative wish alone can bring production to its maximum. But that is not what he is paid to do. He, too, is denied the right to shape industry to his dream ”

“ Not because they needed each other, not because they were so poor in spirit that each must lean upon the other—no, not in poverty of soul, but in a sublime indifference, their love had its origin. Because they did not need each other, because they could do without each other, this was added unto them, this happiness of being together. Felix saw himself and Rose-Ann like mountain-climbers, high on some chill peak above a coward, sleepy world that dozed and battened beneath its coverlets. Or like two eagles, circling in the austere upper air. Theirs should be no common happiness.... ”

“ Women's rebellions there have been before, utopian visions there have been, which have contributed no little to the modern movement by the force of their tradition and ever-living spirit. No Joan of Arc has led men to victory, no Lady Godiva has sacrificed her modesty—nay, even, no courtesan has taught a feeble king how to rule his country—without feeding the flame of feminine aspiration. But it is modern science which, by giving us a new view of the body, its functions, its needs, its claim upon the world, has laid the basis for a successful feminist movement. ”

“ He knew that curious Florentine—he knew that the genius inherent in machinery would yet lift men above the clouds. He did not know that the invention of a spinning-jenny would change the whole world, sweeping away all but the ruins of his own age and erecting above them a hideous factory civilization, turning skilled artisans into machine hands and superseding the prince by the capitalist. ”

“ THE PRINCESS. I had rather be a Gypsy, and choose my lover as I wandered the roads!
THE KING. But you are a Princess, and your choosing is between peace and war. Do you choose war?
THE PRINCESS (fiercely) For myself, yes. I would gladly lead an army against you. I would destroy with the sword everything that your kingdom stands for. And you—I would kill with pleasure.
THE KING. You might kill me, but the things for which my kingdom stands you cannot kill. They are indestructible. They are older than the world, and will last longer. ”