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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: period between dawning adolescence and full maturity when the
pleasures and emotions of art will have to satisfy cravings which, if
starved or insulted, may become morbid and seek disgraceful
satisfactions, and, if prematurely gratified otherwise than
poetically, may destroy the stamina of the race. And it must be borne
in mind that the most dangerous art for this necessary purpose is the
art that presents itself as religious ecstasy. Young people are ripe
for love long before they are ripe for religion. Only a very foolish
person would substitute the Imitation of Christ for Treasure Island as
a present for a boy or girl, or for Byron's Don Juan as a present for
a swain or lass. Pickwick is the safest saint for us in our nonage.
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