_] There is no merit in my attitude: it is an
inborn one. And I must also confess that my struggle in the interest of
progress affords me the highest satisfaction. And the kind of happiness I
thus win is one that I estimate far more highly than the happiness which
contents the ordinary self-seeker.
HELEN
Still there are very few people in whom such a taste is inborn.
LOTH
Perhaps it isn't wholly inborn. I think that we are constrained to it by
the essential wrongness of the conditions of life. Of course, one must
have a sense for that wrongness. There is the point. Now if one has that
sense and suffers consciously under the wrongness of the conditions in
question--why, then one becomes, necessarily, just what I am.
HELEN
Oh, if it were only clearer to me ... Tell me, what conditions, for
instance, do you call wrong?
LOTH
Well, it is wrong, for instance, that he who toils in the sweat of his
brow suffers want while the sluggard lives in luxury. It is wrong to
punish murder in times of peace and reward it in times of war. It is
wrong to despise the hangman and yet, as soldiers do, to bear proudly at
one's side a murderous weapon whether it be rapier or sabre.
Pages:
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108