Page:I, Mary MacLane (1917).pdf/208

 analysis. I hate the inaction and inertia that follow on its heels.

I could be an anarchist. I condemn anarchists but not as I condemn Me. I would respect me more were I this moment prisoned in a real bastile for having stuck a good knife into a bad king. I could feel, no matter how foolish and mistaken in itself the act, that I had done the strong and brave thing at sacrifice of my personal selves. The dry living-death of the prison would be compensated for each day when I said to Me, 'It was a needful honorable act and I did it: for once in my life I was a Regular Person.'

There would be a nourishment in being able to tell that to myself. There would be warming food in owning one so brave remembrance of myselfmyself. [sic]

But, my Soul-and-bones!—at the very moment of lifting the good knife a thought would come: 'How is this king worse than another? What rotten rascal mightn't rise in his place?' And on with a lightning-trail of analysis till my pale hand dropped inert and the knife in it grew harmless as a lily-petal.

It isn't that I haven't the guts. I have.

I am a wild mare in foal: and unfoaling.