DOROTHY: Just kittens. Seven at one whack. Oof--shet ma
mouf.
HELEN: Mother, if you looked at seven kittens now they'd be
fourteen.
DOROTHY: Such comment, from a lady allowed to sit up late.
Such, I might add, perfectly accurate comment. Sleepy, baby?
HELEN: Not a bit.
DOROTHY: You are too. You snuggle like a kitten half full of
milk. Half an hour, huh?
HELEN: Mm.
WRIGHT: We see to it, Captain, that our children are not
stuffed with inflated words, equivocal words. When you talk
with them, they won't be chattering to you about freedom,
democracy, truth, justice. They learn these words closely;
we see to it that they learn them with caution. When they
use them we say--define, define. Democracy by what means,
within what limits, toward what end? Freedom from what, for
what? For what's the profit if I rattle on about freedom in
a semantic vacuum? I am free to speak, not free to kill and
wound; I must be free from slavery to the whims of others. I
can never be free from the bonds of a hundred duties,
responsibilities, loyalties to persons I love and principles
I cherish. Words without definition are sheer noise, and
noise never drummed any race into Paradise. Oh, the thing's
obvious as a child's building blocks--but I recall how on
Earth men tended to forget it twenty-four hours a day, and
here on Lucifer we forget it often enough--myself included.
But we do not forget it when we teach our children.... One
other thing--before this wine takes me back to second
childhood--as soon, Captain, as their minds are old enough--
AREK: Where did Spearman go?
WRIGHT: Oh, he--he just stepped out, I think. Stretch his
legs or something. As soon as their minds are old enough to
think with some independence and explore, we insist that
they start the lifetime struggle with man's primary
dilemma--
ELIS: I hoped you would speak of that, my brother.
WRIGHT: That he is an individual, his self-hood precious and
inviolate, yet he must live in harmony with other
individuals whose right to life and welfare is as certain as
his own. Approach the study of society from any direction
you will, that problem is at the heart of it, and must be a
thousand generations from now, because it must be met anew
with every infant born. We think, here, that the most
rewarding answer is in the old virtues of self-knowledge,
charity, honesty, forbearance, patience. Now, those are all
words that demand definition and multiple definition; on
that basis we have our children study them, search the depth
and height of them, in the not so simple problems of
childhood through the tougher ones of adolescence and
maturity. We make them understand that lip service will not
do: if one is to make himself honest he must eat honesty
with breakfast, sweat with it in the sun, laugh and play and
suffer with it and lie down with it at night until it's near
as the oxygen in his blood. Yes, we aim high. Cruelly high,
would you say? We don't think so. Perfection is a cold spot
on top of a mountain, and nobody ever climbed there. We have
trouble and fun and arguments; sometimes the garden weeds
grow until tomorrow or the day after, but we sleep well.
DOROTHY: Speaking of perfection and goodness and things and
stuff--I know it was Paul who put those violin strings by
Nan's bed, but which one of you supplied them?