Who is a slave but her who cries, 'I am free,' yet cannot cease to exist!" "You speak foolishness from a cowering heart! You imagine me given over to you: I defy you! I hold myself against you! What I choose to be, you cannot change.

I will not be what you think me--what you say I am!" "I am sorry: you must suffer!" "But be free!" "She alone is free who would make free; she loves not freedom who would enslave: she is herself a slave.

Every life, every will, every heart that came within your ken, you have sought to subdue: you are the slave of every slave you have made--such a slave that you do not know it!--See your own self!" She took her hand from the head of the princess, and went two backward paces from her.
A soundless presence as of roaring flame possessed the house--the same, I presume, that was to the children a silent wind.

Involuntarily I turned to the hearth: its fire was a still small moveless glow.

But I saw the worm-thing come creeping out, white-hot, vivid as incandescent silver, the live heart of essential fire.