D. H. Lawrence

“ I knew that the great disparity was wrong—even as we are taught that it is wrong.
ANABEL. Yes, I believe that the great disparity is a mistake. But take their lives, Mr. Barlow. Do you thing they would LIVE more, if they had more money? Do you think the poor live less than the rich?—is their life emptier?
MR. BARLOW. Surely their lives would be better, Anabel.
OLIVER. All our lives would be better, if we hadn't to hang on in the perpetual tug-of-war, like two donkeys pulling at one carrot. The ghastly tension of possessions, and struggling for possession, spoils life for everybody. ”

“ MR. BARLOW. Ah, Henrietta—you have said all this before.
MRS. BARLOW. And say it again. Fight, Gerald. You have my blood in you, thank God. Fight for it, Gerald. Spend it as if it were costly, Gerald, drop by drop. Let no dogs lap it.—Look at your father. He set his heart on a plate at the door, for the poorest mongrel to eat up. See him now, wasted and crossed out like a mistake—and swear, Gerald, swear to be true to my blood in you. Never lie down before the mob, Gerald. Fight it and stab it, and die fighting. It's a lost hope—but fight! ”

“ GERALD. You want to know why the clerks didn't get their rise?—Because you interfered and attempted to bully about it, do you see. That's why.
VOICES. You want bullying.—You'll get bullying, you will.
OLIVER. Can't you see it's no good, either side? It's no mortal use. We might as well all die to-morrow, or to-day, or this minute, as go on bullying one another, one side bullying the other side, and the other side bullying back. We'd BETTER all die.
WILLIE. And a great deal better. I'm damned if I'll take sides with anybody against anything, after this. If I'm to die, I'll die by myself. ”

“ OLIVER. As for power, somebody must have it, you know. It only rests with you to put it into the hands of the best men, the men you REALLY believe in.—And as for money, it's life, it's living that matters, not simply having money.
JOB ARTHUR. You can't live without money.
OLIVER. I know that. And therefore why can't we have the decency to agree simply about money—just agree to dispose of it so that all men could live their own lives.
JOB ARTHUR. That's what we want to do. But the others, such as Gerald Barlow, they keep the money—AND the power. ”

“ There is nothing like gaiety.
WINIFRED. I do love to dance about. I know: let us do a little ballet—four of us—oh, do!
GERALD. What ballet, Winifred?
WINIFRED. Any. Eva can play for us. She plays well.
MR. BARLOW. You won't disturb your mother? Don't disturb Eva if she is busy with your mother. (Exit WINIFRED.) If only I can see Winifred happy, my heart is at rest: if only I can hope for her to be happy in her life.
GERALD. Oh, Winnie's all right, father—especially now she has Miss Wrath to initiate her into the mysteries of life and labour.
ANABEL. Why are you ironical? ”

“ Miss Wrath, Gerald—my son, Miss Wrath. (They bow.) Well, we are quite a gathering, quite a pleasant little gathering. We never expected anything so delightful a month ago, did we, Winifred, darling?
WINIFRED. No, daddy, it's much nicer than expectations.
MR. BARLOW. So it is, dear—to have such exceptional companionship and such a pleasant retreat. We are very happy to have Miss Wrath with us—very happy.
GERALD. A studio's awfully nice, you know; it is such a retreat. A newspaper has no effect in it—falls quite flat, no matter what the headlines are. ”

“ But you can be quieter, more sane even. There ought to be some part of you that can be quiet and apart from the world, some part that can be happy and gentle.
GERALD. Well, there isn't. I don't pretend to be able to extricate a soft sort of John Halifax, Gentleman, out of the machine I'm mixed up in, and keep him to gladden the connubial hearth. I'm angry, and I'm angry right through, and I'm not going to play bo-peep with myself, pretending not to be.
ANABEL. Nobody asks you to. But is there no part of you that can be a bit gentle and peaceful and happy with a woman? ”

“ Vermin is what lives on other people's lives, living on their lives and profiting by it. We've got 'em in every parish—vermin, I say—that live on the sweat and blood of the people—live on it, and get rich on it—get rich through living on other people's lives, the lives of the working men—living on the bodies of the working men—that's vermin—if it isn't, what is it? And every parish must destroy its own—every parish must destroy its own vermin. ”

“ WILLIE. Yes, so do I. You're either going to make SUCH a mess that we shall never get out of it—which I don't think you will do, for the English working man is the soul of obedience and order, and he'd behave himself to-morrow as if he was at Sunday school, no matter what he does to-day.—No, what you'll do, Job Arthur, you'll set up another lot of masters, such a jolly sight worse than what we've got now. I'd rather be mastered by Gerald Barlow, if it comes to mastering, than by Job Arthur Freer—oh, SUCH a lot! ”

“ JOB ARTHUR. My position is this—and I state it before masters and men—that it's our business to strike such a balance between the interests of the men and the interests of the masters that the pits remain healthy, and everybody profits.
WILLIE. You're out for the millennium, I can see—with Mr. Job Arthur Freer striking the balance. We all see you, Job Arthur, one foot on either side of the fence, balancing the see-saw, with masters at one end and men at the other. You'll have to give one side a lot of pudding.—But go back a bit, to where we were before the motor car took your breath away. ”

“ GERALD. I am. Labour is a thing that can't have a head. It's a sort of unwieldy monster that's bound to run its skull against the wall sooner or later, and knock out what bit of brain it's got. You see, you need wit and courage and real understanding if you're going to do anything positive. And Labour has none of these things—certainly it shows no signs of them. ”

“ If we really could know what we were fighting for, if we if we could deeply believe in what we were fighting for, then the struggle might have dignity, beauty, satisfaction for us. If it were a profound struggle for something that was coming to life in us, a struggle that we were convinced would bring us to a new freedom, a new life, then it would be a creative activity, a creative activity in which death is a climax in the progression towards new being. And this is tragedy. ”

“ The one is all head and arrogance, the other all paws and grudge. The bone is only the pretext. A first condition of the being of Bully is that he shall hate the prowling great paws of the Plebs, whilst Plebs by inherent nature goes mad at the sight of Bully's jowl. "Drop it!" cries Plebs. "Hands off!" growls Bully. It is hands against head, the shambling, servile body in a rage of insurrection at last against the wrinkled, heavy head.
Labour not only wants his debt. He wants his pound of flesh. It is a quandary. In our heart of hearts we must admit the debt. ”

“ ANABEL. Tragic, really.
GERALD. Yes, I suppose it is. But one can get beyond tragedy—beyond the state of feeling tragical, I mean. Father himself is tragical. One feels he is mistaken—and yet he wouldn't be any different, and be himself, I suppose. He's sort of crucified on an idea of the working people. It's rather horrible when he's one's father.—However, apart from tragedy, how do you like being here, in this house? ”

“ WINIFRED. Mozart—I'll find you the piece. Mozart's the saddest musician in the world—but he's the best to dance to.
MR. BARLOW. Why, how is it you are such a connoisseur in sadness, darling?
GERALD. She isn't. She's a flagrant amateur.
(EVA plays; they dance a little ballet.)
MR. BARLOW. Charming—charming, Miss Wrath:—will you allow me to say Anabel, we shall all feel so much more at home? Yes—thank you—er—you enter into the spirit of it wonderfully, Anabel, dear. The others are accustomed to play together. But it is not so easy to come in on occasion as you do. ”

“ GERALD (looking at him) . One can't even tread on you.
ANABEL. Don't, Gerald, don't—don't look at him.—Don't say any more, you, Job Arthur.—Come away, Gerald. Come away—come—do come.
GERALD (turning) . THAT a human being! My God!—But he's right—it's I who go. It's we who go, Anabel. He's still there.—My God! a human being!
(Curtain.)
SCENE II Market-place as in Act I. WILLIE HOUGHTON, addressing a large crowd of men from the foot of the obelisk.
WILLIE. And now you're out on strike—now you've been out for a week pretty nearly, what further are you? ”

“ Gerald took it in hand—and now I hardly know my own pits, with the great electric plants and strange machinery, and the new coal-cutters—iron men, as the colliers call them—everything running at top speed, utterly dehumanised, inhuman. Well, it had to be done; it was the only alternative to closing down and throwing three thousand men out of work. And Gerald has done it. But I can't bear to see it. The men of this generation are not like my men. They are worn and gloomy; they have a hollow look that I can't bear to see. ”

“ Therefore, if we could but comprehend or feel the tragedy in the great Labour struggle, the intrinsic tragedy of having to pass through death to birth, our souls would still know some happiness, the very happiness of creative suffering. Instead of which we pile accident on accident, we tear the fabric of our existence fibre by fibre, we confidently look forward to the time when the whole great structure will come down on our heads. ”

“ ANABEL. Of course—while the system stands, if one makes self-sacrifice one only panders to the system, makes it fatter.
MR. BARLOW. One panders to the system—one panders to the system. And so, you see, the problem is too much. One man cannot alter or affect the system; he can only sacrifice himself to it. Which is the worst thing probably that he can do.
OLIVER. Quite. But why feel guilty for the system?—everybody supports it, the poor as much as the rich. ”

“ You'll be far less free with Job Arthur for your boss than ever you were with Gerald Barlow. You'll be far more degraded.—In fact, though I've preached socialism in the market-place for thirty years—if you're going to start killing the masters to set yourselves up as bosses—why, kill me along with the masters. For I'd rather die with somebody who has one tiny little spark of decency left—though it IS a little tiny spark—than live to triumph with those that have none. ”

“ There's a choice between a mess and a tragedy. If Plebs and Bully hang on one to each end of the bone, and pull for grim life, they will at last tear the bone to atoms: in short, destroy the whole material substance of life, and so perish by accident, no better than a frog under the wheel of destiny. ”

“ OLIVER. Can't you see that it takes two to make a quarrel? And as long as each party hangs on to its own end of the stick and struggles to get full hold of the stick, the quarrel will continue. It will continue till you've killed one another. And even then, what better shall you be? What better would you be, really, if you'd killed Gerald Barlow just now? You wouldn't, you know. We're all human beings, after all. And why can't we try really to leave off struggling against one another, and set up a new state of things? ”

“ MR. BARLOW. No, no, Gerald—no, no! Don't be such an alarmist. Let us leave these subjects before the ladies. No, no: the clerks will have their increase quite peacefully.
GERALD. Yes, dear father—but they can't have it peacefully now. We've been threatened already by the colliers—we've already received an ultimatum.
MR. BARLOW. Nonsense, my boy—nonsense! Don't let us split words. You won't go against the clerks in such a small matter. Always avoid trouble over small matters. Don't make bad feeling—don't make bad blood.
MRS. BARLOW. The blood is already rotten in the neighbourhood. ”

“ Job Arthur Freer, who so kindly has ALL our interests at heart.
JOB ARTHUR. I don't profess to be a red-rag Socialist. I don't pretend to think that if the Government had the pits it would be any better for us. No. What I mean is, that the pits are there and every man on this place depends on them, one way or another. They're the cow that gives the milk. And what I mean is, how every man shall have a proper share of the milk, which is food and living. It's like killing the goose that laid the golden egg. I want to keep the cow healthy and strong. ”

“ GERALD. Oh yes, but you didn't hire yourself out at Lilley Close as a sort of upper servant just for twelve pounds a month.
ANABEL. You're wrong—you're wrong. I'm not a sort of upper servant at all—not at all.
GERALD. Oh, yes, you are, if you're paid twelve pounds a month—three pounds a week. That's about what father's sick-nurse gets, I believe. You don't do it for twelve pounds a month. You can make twelve pounds in a day, if you like to work at your little models: I know you can sell your statuette things as soon as you make them. ”

“ Gerald and Oliver came back yesterday from Yorkshire. You know we have a colliery there.
ANABEL. Yes, I believe I've heard.
WINIFRED. I want to introduce you to Gerald, to see if you like him. He's good at the bottom, but he's very overbearing and definite.
ANABEL. Is he?
WINIFRED. Terribly clever in business. He'll get awfully rich.
ANABEL. Isn't he rich enough already?
WINIFRED. Oh, yes, because Daddy is rich enough, really. I think if Gerald was a bit different, he'd be really nice. Now he's so MANAGING. It's sickening. Do you dislike managing people, Anabel? ”

“ WINIFRED. The colliers work awfully hard. The pits are quite wonderful now. Father says it's against nature—all this electricity and so on. Gerald adores electricity. Isn't it curious?
ANABEL. Very. How are you getting on?
WINIFRED. I don't know. It's so hard to make things BALANCE as if they were alive. Where IS the balance in a thing that's alive?
ANABEL. The poise? Yes, Winifred—to me, all the secret of life is in that—just the—the inexpressible poise of a living thing, that makes it so different from a dead thing. ”