Yvette monologue — The Goddess of Reason: A Drama in Five Acts

Rémond Lalain, stand from my path, I say! (_To the crowd._) Not emigré, but prisoner in La Force! Not traitor! That’s a wretch who doth betray! Aristocrat?—Who chooseth his birth star? Crieth at Life’s gate, “Of such an house I’m heir!” But in we drift from the great sea without; A current takes us—“Of my house are ye!” So you, so I, so this citoyen here, Rémond Lalain, who is Lalain by chance, And might have been Capet or Mirabeau! And so this other, standing gravely there Alone, a man alone upon a rock, And the tide mounts!—The current swept him there! Another drift, and he had been Lalain, Orator and idol of the Jacobins!— Names! They are the mist through which the man Is scarce discerned, the sea-drift hides the pearl. Ghosts of the past the present spurns! Dead leaves! Masks for the pauper and the prince! Mere names! I would not have them rule my spirit thus!— Aristocrat! I know not, but I know The man’s been known to lift a peasant’s load And gather seaweed with a fisher’s child!