Susan Glaspell

“ It seemed to him now, leaning back in his chair and filled with the things of which he had spoken, that almost as great as a living presence with which to share the years, would be that thing of growing old with a beautiful memory. It would be a supreme thing to have a hand in your hand, a face against your face, a heart against your heart as you stepped on into the years; but if that could not be, and perfection is not given freely in this life, surely it would keep the note of cheer in one's voice, the kindly gleam in one's eye, to bring with one into old age the memory of a perfect love. ”

“ FELIX: The things it hurts will have to go.
FEJEVARY: I don't know about that, Felix. Perhaps in time we'll find truth in them.
FELIX: Oh, if you feel that way, father.
FEJEVARY: Don't be kind to me, my boy, I'm not that old.
SILAS: But think what it is you've said! If it's true that we made ourselves—made ourselves out of the wanting to be more—created ourselves you might say, by our own courage—our—what is it?—aspiration. Why, I can't take it in. I haven't got the mind to take it in. And what mind I have got says no. It's too—
FEJEVARY: It fights with what's there. ”

“ Harriett replied, falteringly—for Ruth's burning eyes never left her sister's face. "You know—really—you're not married. You know he's not divorced, Ruth. He's not your husband. He's Marion Averley's."
"You think so?" Ruth flung back at her. "You really think so, do you, Harriett? After those years together—brought together by love, united by living, by effort, by patience, by courage—I ask you again, Harriett,—if the things there have been between Stuart Williams and me can't make a marriage real—what can?"
"The law is the law," murmured Harriett. "He is married to her. ”

“ But the new warmth flooded Katie's heart at thought of having talked of nothing. What was there to talk about so important as talking of nothing? In a new way it drew her back to the crowds; the crowds that talked so loudly of many unlovely things in order to still in their hearts that call for the loveliness of talking of nothing.
It gave her new understanding of Ann. Ann was one who must rest in the wonder of talking of nothing. It was for that she had gone down. The world had destroyed her for the very thing for which life loved her—Katie joining with the world. ”

“ If you love me, Ernestine, help me not to hate the world. If we hate the world, we have given up. Sweetheart,"—the voice changed on that word—"even yet—even yet in a different way, I want to win. I cannot do it alone. I cannot do it at all, if you hate the world. You are to be my eyes, Ernestine. You are to see the beautiful things for me. You are to make me love them more than I ever did before. You are to be the light—don't you see, sweetheart? And you cannot do it, don't you see you cannot, if your own heart is not right with the world?" ”

“ What is that going to be?"
"Love will fill its place!" came youth's proud, sure answer.
Ruth was looking straight ahead; the girl's tone had thrilled her—that faith in love, that courage for it. It was so youthful!—so youthfully sure, so triumphant in blindness. Youth would dare so much—youth knew so little. She did not say anything; she could not bear to.
"Love can fill its place!" Mildred said again, as if challenging that silence. And as still Ruth did not speak she demanded, sharply, "Can't it?"
Ruth turned to her a tender, compassionate face, too full of feeling, of conflict, to speak. ”

“ What is peace? Peace is what the struggle knows in moments very far apart. Peace—that is not a place to rest. Are you resting? What are you? You who'd take me from what I am to something else?
TOM: I thought you knew, Claire.
CLAIRE: I know—what you pass for. But are you beauty? Beauty is that only living pattern—the trying to take pattern. Are you trying?
TOM: Within myself, Claire. I never thought you doubted that.
CLAIRE: Beauty is it. (she turns to Breath of Life, as if to learn it there, but turns away with a sob) If I cannot go to you now—I will always be alone. ”

“ Did life thwarted in one place take it out in another? Because Ann could not find joy was it to be that Katie could not have peace? Had Ann's yearning for love been the breath blowing to flame Katie's yearning for understanding? Because Ann could not dream her way to realities did it mean that Katie must fight her way to them?
They were such big things—such resistless things—these wild new things which were sweeping in upon her. With the emotion of the world surging in and out like that how could any one claim to have a solution for the whole question of living? ”

“ You will pity all who scoff and all who yearn, and you will say to yourself: 'The world needs to know more about love. More than knowledge or science or any other thing, the world needs more faith in love.' Then some day you will see that you not only know but have power to make it plain, and you will not hold back any longer then. And there is to be the real victory and completion of Karl Hubers' life!—there the real triumph over fate—that triumph of the spirit of love. ”

“ Gently she said: "I must have made things very hard for you, Deane. The town—your friends—your people, because of me you were against them all. That does make things hard—to be apart from the people you are with." She looked at him, her face softened with affectionate regret, with a newly understanding gratitude. "I've not been very good for your life, have I, Deane?" she said, more lightly, but her voice touched with wistfulness.
He looked at her, as if willing to meet that, as if frankly considering it. "I can't say that you've been very good for my happiness, Ruth," he laughed. ”

“ DICK: It's all rather mysterious, isn't it?
HARRY: And Claire doesn't make it any less so.
CLAIRE: Can I make life any less mysterious?
HARRY: If you know what you are doing, why can't you tell Dick?
DICK: Never mind. After all, why should I be told? (he turns away)
(At that she wants to tell him. Helpless, as one who cannot get across a stream, starts uncertainly.)
CLAIRE: I want to give fragrance to Breath of Life (faces the room beyond the wall of glass) —the flower I have created that is outside what flowers have been. What has gone out should bring fragrance from what it has left. ”

“ It could never be the same again. Old things must go. New things come.
Watching Ann, yearning over her, sorrowing, adoring, he saw life as what life had done to her. Saw it as the thing she had found.
He watched the curve of her mouth. Her beautiful bosom rising and falling as she slept. The lovely line of her throat, the blood throbbing in her throat, her long lashes upon her cheek, that loveliness—beauty—that sweetness and tenderness—and what it had met. She, so exquisitely fashioned for love—needful of it—so perfect—so infinitely to be desired and cherished—and what she had found. ”

“ Ernestine, we all dream of love; we all desire it. It is only at rare, rare times it comes as it came to you. And I say to you—and I mean it from the bottom of my heart—that if you had been forced to give up your love in the first hour of its fulfillment, for all that you should thank God through the remainder of your life that it had been yours. For you had it!—and nothing, loss, death, defeat, disappointment of every kind, can strip from your soul the consciousness that once, no matter for how short a time, love in its fullness and perfection was yours. ”

“ Sterility of the heart seemed a thing for pity rather than scorn. "I'm sorry for you," she spoke it. "Oh I'm sorry for us all! We all bungle it! We're all in the grip of dead things, aren't we? Do you suppose it will ever be any different?"
And still he looked, not at the quill or the shoes, but the eyes, eyes which seemed sorrowing with all the love sorrows of the centuries. "Young woman," he said uncertainly, "you puzzle me."
"I puzzle myself," said Katie, and wiped her eyes and laughed a little, thinking of the scornful exit she had meant to make after telling him what she thought of him. ”

“ MADELINE: Play safe.
HOLDEN: If it's playing safe it's that one you love more than yourself be safe. It would be a luxury to—destroy one's self.
MADELINE: That sounds like Uncle Felix. (seeing she has hurt him, she goes over and sits across from him at the table) I'm sorry. I say the wrong things today.
HOLDEN: I don't know that you do.
MADELINE: But isn't uncle funny? His left mind doesn't know what his right mind is doing. He has to think of himself as a person of sentiment—idealism, and—quite a job, at times. Clever—how he gets away with it. ”

“ I—oh, Karl—can't we do something? Can't we do something about it?"
"I was selfish to tell you—but it is good to have you understand."
But she had not let go that idea of something being done. "Karl, couldn't you go on with it? Isn't there some way? Can't we find a way?"
He shook his head. "I have thought of it by the hour—gone over every side of it. But work like that takes a man's whole being. It takes more than mere eyes and hands—more than just mind. You must have the spirit right for it—all things must work together. It's not the sort of work to do under a handicap. ”

“ She had, without any plan for doing so, turned down the little street where she used to go to meet Stuart. And when she realized where she was going thoughts of other things fell away; the feeling of those first days was strangely revivified, as if going that old way made her for the moment the girl who had gone that way. Again love was not a thing of right or wrong, it was the thing that had to have its way—life's great imperative. Going down that old street made the glow of those days—the excitement—come to life and quicken her again. ”

“ Not the words but the sob behind them moved him to ask gently: "Katie dear, what is it? What's the trouble?"
Her eyes were swimming. "Uncle—it's the misery of the world! It's the people who aren't where they belong! It's the lives ruined through blunders—it's the cruelty—the needless cruelty of it all." She leaned forward, the tears upon her cheeks. "Uncle, how can you? You have a mind—a kind heart. But what good are they? If you believe the things you say you believe—oh you think you believe them—but you don't seem to connect them. ”

“ I sit sewing those little pieces together—a foolish thing to do, but one must be doing something, and as I think how useless it is there comes the thought of whether it is any more useless than all the other things in life. Is it any more useless than surgery? For can a great surgeon save his best friend? Is it any more useless than science—for can science do anything for her own? Is it any more useless than ambition and purpose and hope—for does not fate make sport of them all? Is it any more useless than books—for can books reach the hearts which need them most? ”

“ FEJEVARY: (trying a different tack, laughing) Oh, you're a romantic girl, Madeline—skunk and all. Rather nice, at that. But the thing is perfectly fantastic, from every standpoint. You speak as if you had millions. And if you did, it wouldn't matter, not really. You are going against the spirit of this country; with or without money, that can't be done. Take a man like Professor Holden. He's radical in his sympathies—but does he run out and club the police?
MADELINE: (in a smouldering way) I thought America was a democracy.
FEJEVARY: We have just fought a great war for democracy. ”

“ He helped her in deceiving her family and friends, aided them in the ugly work of stealing what happiness they could from the society in which they lived. He did not like doing it. Neither did he like attending the agonies of child-birth, or standing impotently at the bed of the dying. It might seem absurd, in trying to explain one's self, to claim for this love the inevitability of the beginning and the end of life, and yet, seeing it as he saw it he did think of it, not as a thing that should or should not be, but as a thing that was; not as life should or should not be lived, but as life. ”

“ Everything about the girl was slim, built for favoring breezes.
"I have one thing more to ask." It was Kate's voice was not well controlled this time.
"You may call it a whim, a notion, foolish notion; call it what you like, but I want you to stay here to-night."
The girl was looking down at her, down into the upturned face, all light and strength and purpose as one standing apart and disinterested might view a spectacle. Slowly, comprehendingly, dispassionately she shook her head. "It would be—no use."
"Perhaps," Katie acquiesced. "Some of the very nicest things in life are—no use. ”

“ Margaret
Oh—Abbie!
Abbie
Not as you love—what’s right. If you loved her, don’t you want to protect her—now that she lies dead in there? [Her voice breaking.] Oh, Miss Margaret, it was right at the very end of her life. Maybe when we’re going to die things we’ve borne all our lives are things we can’t bear any longer. Just—don’t count that last hour.
Margaret
[After a moment of being swayed by this.] Yet you counted it, Abbie. You did what she said—because of the strength of her. You told me last night—her mind was there. Terrible the way it was right there. She hadn’t left her life. ”

“ Then she met Mildred. It came to her then—right while she was talking with Harriett about what Flora Copeland was going to do now that the house would be broken up—that it was just that thing which kept the world conservative. It was fear for others. It was that feeling she had when she looked down at Mildred's feet.
One did not have that feeling when one looked at one's own feet. Fear of pain for others was quite unlike fear for one's self. Courage for one's self one could gain; in the fires of the heart that courage was forged. ”

“ Who would do more for Karl than any one else on earth? Who is closer to him than any one else in the world? Who can make him see without seeing?—yet, know without knowing? Dr. Parkman,"—voice eager, eyes very tender—"is there any question in your mind as to who can come closest to Karl?"
"But—but—" he gasped.
"I know," she hastened—"much to talk over; so many things to overcome. But won't you be very fair to me and look at it first as a whole? The men in Karl's laboratory know more about science than I do. But they do not know as much about Karl. They have the science and I have the spirit. ”

“ It was the smile led her to gasp: "Why I believe you hate us!"
"Why I really believe I do," he replied quietly, still smiling.
Suddenly she flared. "That's not the thing! You're not going to set the world right by hating the world. You're not going to make it right for some people by hating other people. What good thing can come of hate?"
"The greatest things have come of hate. Of a divine hate that transcends love."
"Why no they haven't! The greatest things have come of love. What the world needs is more love. You can't bring love by hating." ”

“ Love's fear possessed her utterly. He had had the feeling all along that it was rushing on to disaster. He stood back from it now with something like awe: a force not for him to control.
And he, with it from within, was the only one who did not condemn Stuart Williams for letting Ruth go. A man, and older than she, they scorned him for letting an infatuated girl throw her life away like that. And it was not only that he saw that the man was sick and broken; it was that he saw that Stuart, just as Ruth, had gone in love beyond his power to control love, that he was mastered, not master, now. ”

“ Margaret
I don’t know. And it’s true of all of us. Of me too. I do things that to me seem important, and yet I just do them—I don’t get to the thing I’m doing them for—to life itself. I don’t simply and profoundly get to life. Bernice did.
Craig
Yes. Bernice did.
Margaret
And yet you had to—shy away from Bernice. Into a smaller world that could be all your world. No, Craig, you haven’t power. It’s true. And for one hour in our lives let’s try to—Those love affairs of yours—they’re like your false writing—to keep yourself from knowing you haven’t power. ”

“ Long, lonely years may come, and all hard things may come, but through it all the thing to keep your soul in tune is the memory of some one perfect hour."
Stillness followed that, the stillness which was silence. She had not moved.
"You dreamed your dream,"—and in his voice now the beautiful things of appreciation and understanding. "I know your dream. You dreamed of growing old together; of taking from life everything there was together; of achieving to the uttermost; of rejoicing in each other's victories, growing more and more close together. I know your dream—a beautiful dream. ”

“ Of thousands of other girls who might be growing faint in operating the wires for life. Oh, she had power to fill Ann's life—but would that have power to still for her the mocking whispers from the dreams which had died slow deaths in all the other barren lives? Even though she took Ann from the crowd to a far green hill of happiness, would not Katie herself see from that far green hill all the other girls "called" to life, going forth as pilgrims with the lovely love-longing in their hearts only to find life waiting to seize them for the work of the woman who wore the white furs? ”

“ She put one of them up, still further averting her face, lost to him in the picture forming itself before her of how life would be if love came right; what it would mean not to have to hide, but to have those who cared for her happy in her happiness; what it would mean to give herself to love without fear, to wear her joy proudly before the world, revealing her womanhood. She was not thinking of what life with Deane would be but of what love that could have its place would be: telling her mother and father and Edith, being able to show the pride of being loved, the triumph of loving. ”