If the
hangman displayed his axe thus he would doubtless be stoned. It is wrong,
finally, to support as a state religion the faith of Christ which teaches
long-suffering, forgiveness and love, and, on the other hand, to train
whole nations to be destroyers of their own kind. These are but a few
among millions of absurdities. It costs an effort to penetrate to the
true nature of all these things: one must begin early.
HELEN
But how did you succeed in thinking of all this? It seems so simple and
yet one never thinks of it.
LOTH
In various ways: the course of my own personal development, conversation
with friends, reading and independent thinking. I found out the first
absurdity when I was a little boy. I once told a rather flagrant lie and
my father flogged me most soundly. Shortly thereafter I took a railroad
journey with my father and I discovered that my father lied, too, and
seemed to take the action quite as a matter of course. I was five years
old at that time and my father told the conductor that I was not yet four
in order to secure free transportation for me. Again, our teacher said to
us: be industrious, be honourable and you will invariably prosper in
life.
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