No. You’ve fought all your life. But now we must sit silent together and wait; wait for our boy to come back. Will, think of it; we are going to have a boy “over there,” too.
White
Hilda, hasn’t it ever struck you that we may have been all wrong? (She looks at him, as she holds his hand.) What could these frail hands do? How could we poor little King Canutes halt this tide that has swept over the world? Isn’t it better, after all, that men should fight themselves out; bring such desolation upon themselves that they will be forced to see the futility of war? May it not become so terrible that men—the workers, I mean—will throw down their worn-out weapons of their own accord? Won’t permanent peace come through bitter experience rather than talk—talk—talk?
Hilda
(Touching the torn pages of his speech and smiling)
Here is your answer to your own question.
White
Oh, that was all theory. We’re in now. You say yourself we can’t oppose it. Isn’t it better if we try to direct the current to our own ends rather than sink by trying to swim against it?
Hilda
Oh, yes; it would be easier for one who could compromise.