Page:Hermione and her little group of serious thinkers (1923, c1916).djvu/133

Fothergil Finch's Revolt "Visitors are warned not to feed the animals under the penalty of the law."

Always their laws! Always their restrictions! Always their damnable shackles! Always this denial of the rights of the individual!

For a moment I stood there with the peanut in my hand just simply too angry for anything!

And then I cried out, quite loudly: "Curses upon organized society! I will break its laws! I will feed the animals!"

Always in times of great crisis I see myself quite plainly as if I were some other person; poets often do, you know; and I could not help thinking of the pose of Ajax defying the lightning.

"I will break the law!" I cried. "So there!"

And with that I flung the peanut right into the cage with all my might, and ran away, laughing mockingly as I ran.

I felt that I had crossed the Rubicon, and that night I sat down and wrote my revolutionary poem, "The Defiance."

What the Cause needs is men with Vision to see and Courage to perform! This is the age of Virility!