Lady Florence Dixie

“ He who would reap the grain of Happiness Must sow as he would reap. He must be just. And now I would point out that Truth derides, Derides with scorn all priestly superstition. If priests would be, they must adhere to Truth, They must not seek to bolster up a lie. Truth only dwells in Nature. She abides With her sole God, the endless Universe. Go, seek her there, and not in fairy tales, Proclaim her as she is, not cloaked in sham. Truth is a meteor leading on to more, Leading to where abounding knowledge reigns. Where Truth is not, Falsehood alone can be. ”

“ The world has courted his love, but its wiles have not awoke it. Often, when in loving commune with his friend Hector D’Estrange, the thought would flash through the young duke’s mind, that if Hector had been a woman, the great love of which he felt himself capable, would have gone out to her absolutely and without reserve. What was the subtle power that had attracted him to Hector D’Estrange, which had made him pause on the verge of pleasure’s precipice, and, casting to the winds his hitherto selfish existence, had made him body and soul the devoted adherent of the young reformer? ”

“ My bores, Vergli and Vulnar you condemn, And youthful Fortunatus likewise stands, Marked as an object for the hangman’s rope. Would you commit so terrible a crime As to deprive those three of Nature’s breath, For acts which are not crimes? Pause, think, my bores, 85 Are they deserving of a death so drear? I pray you, join your signatures to mine, Ay, every member of The House of Bores, Entreating the King’s Gracious Majesty To pardon and accord fair Liberty To Vergli, Fortunatus, and Vulnar. They are not felons; two are noble men, One, a brave youth, full of enthusiasm. ”

“ Evie Ravensdale’s face is before her in imagination. She sees the dear, dark, dreamy eyes, the clear-cut features, the beautiful forehead around which the raven curls are clustering; she sees him as plainly as though he stood before her, for is not his presence burnt into her mind with the exactitude of reality? She loves him with all her heart, and power, and soul, and mind. No sacrifice for his sake would seem hard. To die that he might live would be a joy. If Flora Desmond does not know what love means, then who does? ”

“ She strove to be brave, this girl Queen, but her heart was grievously torn, and she who could charge in the fiercest battle, ride the wildest of horses, take a foremost part in the most dangerous of sports, found it hard to face the trial which had come to darken her life, just at the very moment when, by the restoration of Piñone, she had thought her life brimful of promise, and good fortune, and happiness bright beyond compare. ”

“ Small wonder seeing they are human and This God is most inhuman. Oh! fair Truth Prevail, prevail, come quickly and prevail. Well, Vulnar, Life is fair and Life is Life— To us who know that Thought can never die And is the soul of Life, we fear not Death; Because we feel ’tis but an open door Where Life rejoins the Thought which cannot die, And starts afresh upon Life’s pilgrimage. I will not say farewell, we’ll meet again, You and my fair-haired, blue-eyed Escanior; We’ll meet, our forceful thought attracting us To be together. ”

“ The Hall of Liberty stands here to day as a living witness to the desire of woman to be heard. It was six years ago that I first saw it in my dreams. It is reality now, and will endure through all time, as a memorial of the first great effort made by woman to shake off the chains of slavery, that ever since our knowledge of man began, have held her a prisoner in the gilded gaols of inactivity and helplessness. I stand here to-day prepared to deny that woman is the inferior of man, either in mental capacity or physical strength, provided always that she be given equal advantages with him. ”

“ To go to you, to die by your dear side, That is the wish of Vergli’s yearning heart; To live for you, to win the Truth you love, Shall be the duty done for you and Right.”
Verita. “Spoken as heroes speak, noble Vergli, Your answ’ring words will cheer Isola’s heart; They’ll flood with light her prison’s lonely cell And bring her happiness and restful peace. Now will I start for Infantlonia. There! The sun is sinking, all is red and gold, The colours flood the far off western sky. Red is Blood’s sign, but Gold’s the sign of Truth, And Martyr’s blood shall win Truth’s victory.” ”

“ There comes the band of the White Guards,—how soul-stirring its music!—and there, too, is the milk-white charger Saladin, with arching neck and proud carriage; for does he not bear a precious charge indeed, in the person of Gloria de Lara?
The sun gleams down upon her gilded helmet, and lights with a living blaze the gold braiding upon her uniform. How beautiful she looks as she rides along with the glance of eager thousands upon her! How she loves the people! How they return that love! Surely none in that wildly enthusiastic crowd would seek to harm her? ”

“ There should be no State Church, but liberty To every man to feel that his own creed Was not an outcast one and unendowed. Let conscience have its freedom and all creeds Be self-supporting, not ignored by State, While one alone is bolstered up as right. I counsel, therefore, Disestablishment; First giving compensation to the Clergy. Let all men pray in secret and display Fade, as should fade barbaric practices. Force not upon your Sovereigns the disgrace Of swearing false allegiance to a lie, What greater Moral crime than to exclaim ‘I do believe that which I don’t believe’? ”

“ Much more than a score of years have passed away since Harry Kintore died in her arms, but if she lived through countless scores of years that love would burn just the same. She wanders along the gravel carriage drive, her thoughts busy with the past. Anon they fleet forward to the future, and then a light of triumph dances in her eyes. But it is with the past that she is chiefly occupied this night, for it is the 14th of July, the anniversary of the day on which her darling died.
She has passed along the shady avenue, and entered a tiny straggling path, shut in by tall dark trees. ”

“ And when we cry ‘Reform,’ retorts ‘Revolt,’ And dubs our movement ‘Social Revolution.’ Our noble Vergli calls it ‘Moral Force,’ Seeking a level where it can abide, And influence entire Society. And thus it is, dear comrades, without doubt, And therefore to attain it we must work, Using all forces which we can command. We seek not Anarchy, that’s not our creed, We ask for Human rights and Human laws, For true religion, and not Superstition. ”

“ If Vivi Trevor had never been born, the world would have lost nothing. And yet, as a drop is to an ocean, so is the life of this one despairing soul to the thousands who, like her, have gone down to their graves in uselessness and obscurity, not because in natural body and mind they were unfitted to work in the great army of man, not because in desire and willingness they were found wanting, but because of that barrier, that artificial mountain which one sex has forbidden the other sex to climb, which one sex has erected in the face of Nature, to shut out the operations of Nature’s laws. ”

“ Oh! come to me, Success, ye whom I woo, Not that success for which Men strive so much. Not empty adulation and renown. I care as little for the world’s false praise As I care for its paltry condemnation. The true Success I ask to come to me, Is that the Truth, whose flag I hold aloft, And Justice and kind Love shall triumph o’er The reign of Falsehood, Cruelty, and Hate. For this I send forth thought waves far and wide, May their returning tide bring back to me My bride, Success, whom I court from afar. ”