| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: bonds, is not too tight to be borne, and superimposes on it a painful
burden of forced, inculcated, suggested, and altogether unnecessary
affection and responsibility which we should do well to get rid of by
making relatives as independent of one another as possible.
The Fate of the Family
The difficulty of inducing people to talk sensibly about the family is
the same as that which I pointed out in a previous volume as confusing
discussions of marriage. Marriage is not a single invariable
institution: it changes from civilization to civilization, from
religion to religion, from civil code to civil code, from frontier to
frontier. The family is still more variable, because the number of
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: partaken with the worshippers of idols, you have seen your fellow
Christians sacrificed and devoured by your brute comrades. For
this alone you deserve to be tortured eternally, and doubtless that
will be so after we have done with you. As for the hidalgo Don
Sarceda, I know him only as a brave companion in arms, and
certainly I shall not listen to tales told against him by a
wandering apostate. It is, however, unlucky for you,' and here a
gleam of light shot across the face of Cortes, 'that there should
be any old feud between you, seeing that it is to his charge that I
am about to confide you. Now for the last time I say choose. Will
you reveal the hiding place of the treasure and go free, or will
Montezuma's Daughter |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells: until their time is ripe. Let them not know that I am the Master."
"The Master's will is sweet," said the Dog-man, with the ready tact
of his canine blood.
"But one has sinned," said I. "Him I will kill, whenever I may meet him.
When I say to you, `That is he,' see that you fall upon him.
And now I will go to the men and women who are assembled together."
For a moment the opening of the hut was blackened by the exit of
the Dog-man. Then I followed and stood up, almost in the exact spot
where I had been when I had heard Moreau and his staghound pursuing me.
But now it was night, and all the miasmatic ravine about me was black;
and beyond, instead of a green, sunlit slope, I saw a red fire,
The Island of Doctor Moreau |
