Study carefully the infinitives in the following quotation. Notice which
are active and which are passive infinitives.
The twenty thousand men prematurely slain on a field of battle, mean,
to the women of their race, twenty thousand human creatures _to be
borne_ within them for months, _to be given_ birth to in anguish, _to
be fed_ from their breasts and _to be reared_ with toil, if the
members of the tribe and the strength of the nation are _to be
maintained_. In nations continually at war, incessant and unbroken
child-bearing is by war imposed on all women if the state is _to
survive_; and whenever war occurs, if numbers are _to be maintained_,
there must be an increased child-bearing and rearing. This throws upon
woman, as woman, a war tax, compared with which all that the male
expends in military preparations is comparatively light.
It is especially in the domain of war that we, the bearers of men's
bodies, who supply its most valuable munition, who, not amid the
clamor and ardor of battle, but singly, and alone, with a
three-in-the-morning courage, shed our blood and face death that the
battle-field might have its food, a food more precious to us than our
heart's blood; it is we, especially, who, in the domain of war, have
our word _to say_, a word no man can say for us. It is our intention
_to enter_ into the domain of war and _to labor_ there till in the
course of generations we have extinguished it.--_Olive Schreiner_.