George Middleton

“ Her charm is more compelling than her actual beauty. Upon her face rests a vague suspense. She is in deep mourning.
There is a long pause: suddenly her face lights up; she rises, watches anxiously a moment, then relaxes—disappointed. In her hand she holds a crumpled telegram, which she smooths out and rereads. The clock slowly strikes five, and she crosses to it, indicating her expected visitor is late. She stands before the fire a second, kisses the telegram, puts it in her dress—recrosses to the window again slowly. In a few seconds her sharp intake of breath shows some one is coming. ”

“ But why shouldn’t you and your friends extend that same charity to the rest of the sinners? (Patricia does not detect Miss Stannard’s change of manner so intent is she in her own words.) You give it to me because I am a creative artist. Everybody has a bit of the artist in them. Some of us use it to make bread; others use it to make trouble. All the nice sinners of the world have the creative spirit, too. Sin is the creating of the actual out of the imagined. ”

“ Marie
Have you forgotten that was the other reason I left him? He didn’t love our child: it was in his way.
Tom
Love a mewling, puking child? Not much.
Grant
(Trying to calm her as she walks up and down)
Sh! Control yourself.
[44]
Marie
My love for the child was the only decent thing about me.
Grant
But I gave you other virtues. I made you love your husband.
Marie
If I had to love my husband in your revised version couldn’t I at least have kept my child?
Grant
Don’t be unreasonable. No leading lady wants a child. ”

“ THE MAN
I knew your capacity for suffering, and guessed you were suffering, but was that all love had grown to mean to you—an excuse for suffering? Were you, too, luxuriating, like so many other women, in your self-inflicted martyrdom and sacrifice, forgetting that I—the man you loved—was with you on the altar? Were you sheltering your inactivity beneath spiritual sophistries—jagged, rusty, death-bearing ideals of duty, pity, and the like—
THE WOMAN
(Trying to interrupt him throughout)
Stop—stop—! ”

“ Externally, there is nothing particularly striking about her: if there be such a thing as an average wife Jerry personifies it. She has loved her husband and kept house for him without a spoken protest; for she has had no advanced ideas or theories. Yet she has had her fears and little concealments and dreams—like any married woman. She has been sustained through the ten years of hard sledding by the belief in her husband’s ultimate financial success. And as she reads the criticisms of his play, The Sand Bar, produced the night before, she realizes it has come at last. ”

“ Besides his commentary on the Somnium Scipionis of Cicero, Macrobius wrote a work in seven Books on Roman literature and antiquities with the title of Saturnalia. The imaginary conversations of which it consists are supposed to take place during the festival of the Saturnalia at Rome (hence the title) ; and the chief subject of discussion is the poetry of Virgil. A remarkable feature of the book is its wealth of quotation from Greek and Latin authors. Macrobius, like Gellius, bases his work on extracts from older authorities; but, unlike him, arranges his matter systematically. ”

“ But now—now that his protection is gone—it is easy to come!—it is no effort; you need my protection. Death offers the gift, not you. But you are conventional to the end; for you even come to the man you love wearing the mourning weeds of him who stood between!—
(She grasps quickly at her dress, then with a deep moan sinks upon the sofa-chair amid stifled sobs. A very long pause follows. He stands looking at her, betraying only bitterness.) ”

“ But the more so are the sins one does for love. Love is the most creative of all impulses. If you forgive me because I’m an artist, as you say; if you can ask me to sit beside your lily-faced daughters and stubby-chinned sons; if you can kiss my lips—I, who have openly violated all your standards—why do you turn against this woman, who has done what she has for the noblest of motives—love—the love of a man? ”

“ Perhaps it was easier than coming to me!
(She is stunned, quivers, and turns away silent. She almost staggers to a chair, and sits down with head bowed: he tries to control his bitterness, but it escapes more and more in spite of him.)
I waited for him to let you go willingly, to give you your promised chance for happiness. But as the alloted time passed by and nothing happened, my imagination pictured the possibilities of the situation. I knew how you could deceive, not always to protect yourself but to save others. ”

“ On the sofa opposite, with a letter in her hand, Hilda White, his wife, is seated. She is somewhat younger in fact, though in appearance she is as one who has been worn a bit by the struggle of many years. Her manner contrasts with her husband’s: her inheritance of delicate refinement is ever present in her soft voice and gentle gesture. Yet she, too, suggests strength—the sort which will endure all for a fixed intention. ”

“ Caesar is the villain of the piece; Pompey embodies all that is good; Cato and Brutus are highly spoken of; the former stands as the ideal Stoic. The Senate, except in Book v. ad init., appears in a rather unfavourable light, and so does the plebs. Lucan did not want the re-establishment of the republican oligarchy, but acquiesced in the empire as being ordained by fate. This is borne out by what we know of the Pisonian conspiracy, the object of which was not to re-establish the republic, but to put some leading man like Seneca on the throne. ”

“ As he continues to watch Patricia with a cynical smile, she leaves the group unobserved by the others and moves towards the low, deep chair near the fireplace.
Patricia has the large features of a stage-beauty, which enhance her appearance before the footlights. Her hair is parted and coiled low on her neck. She is elegantly gowned, and carries a long, elaborate scarf which is hung across her back and held by each arm. She uses this continually to increase her instinctive plasticity. As she turns there is a serious expression upon her face, as though, for once she had been her true self. ”

“ CHAPTER III THE AUGUSTAN AGE. VIRGIL. (1) LIFE.
Our chief authority for the life of Virgil, apart from his own writings and those of his contemporaries, is Donatus, whose work is probably based on Suetonius’ De Poetis. Donatus’ work, though not free from romance, is much more valuable than the Life by Probus [41] or the metrical account given by Phocas. [42] Some important details are given in the Life wrongly attributed to Servius, and in an account preserved in a Berne MS. of the tenth century.
The poet’s name is correctly given as P. Vergilius Maro in all the Lives. ”

“ We can't escape: we've been blind to-day. Listen, I love you, I love you, and you love me.
THE MAN
(Trying to free himself)
It's dead. No; no.
THE WOMAN
You do! You do! Your anger tells me so; your cruelty, the bitterness, and the hurt in your heart cries it. If I were meant to pass, you would not have come. Kiss me: you are afraid to kiss me—
(He stands, looking at her, caught by his own feelings. They are still a moment; then his head lowers. They kiss. She falls back, half swooning, in his arms.) ”

“ Grant
(Bitterly)
I hate what it has made me suffer.
Tom
Every great artist has despised them. I despise them.
Grant
(More seriously)
Only I think the public has its rights. They have the right to laugh, to watch virtue triumph, to behold [50] success, to feel love win out, to see what they think is happiness. They have that right because their own lives are so full of the other things. And maybe they like to dream a little, too.
Marie
Who’s mushy now?
Grant
Don’t sneer at a popular success. It’s sometimes more difficult to perform a trick than climb a mountain peak. ”

“ Whether Caesar was concerned in the abortive attempt of Catiline at revolution in 65, is a moot point. He was now aedile, and acquired great popularity by the splendid shows which he gave to the people, and by his restoration of the statue and trophies of Marius. In 64, as president of the quaestio de sicariis, he condemned some of the most active agents in Sulla’s proscriptions. In 63 he supported the lex agraria of P. Servilius Rullus, and brought about the prosecution of C. Rabirius for the murder of the tribune Saturninus. ”

“ Does love lie only in strength? (She comes to him.) Doesn't love ever come to the tired and weak? Can't one be just a plain, helpless woman craving protection of the man, who, in turn, needs a bosom for his tired head? ”

“ I had told you love would summon my forces with the brush to their fullest expresion, for in myself I desired the mere consciousness that you loved me to drive me on to all that you had expected of me. ”