Most women are secretly lawless on the old plan inaugurated by
Eve--of inclining to do anything forbidden, of hugging everything
they are unsupposed to hug, of determinedly kicking over the traces
when coerced too much. The ban is the chief attraction.
It’s but little like that with me. There would be point and purpose
in my Action. But it is kept in stupor by analysis.
I am malcontent about that, though I live upon 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
myself.
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.