You enter into life, at best, halt or
maimed; and the sacrifice is not beautiful, though necessary.
VIOLET (after a pause). But when one sacrifices one's self for
others?
L. Why not rather others for you?
VIOLET. Oh! but I couldn't bear that.
L. Then why should they bear it?
DORA (bursting in, indignant). And Thermopylae, and Protesilaus,
and Marcus Curtius, and Arnold de Winkelried, and Iphigenia, and
Jephthah's daughter?
L. (sustaining the indignation unmoved). And the Samaritan woman's
son?
DORA. Which Samaritan woman's?
L. Read 2 Kings vi. 29.
DORA (obeys). How horrid! As if we meant anything like that!
L. You don't seem to me to know in the least what you do mean,
children. What practical difference is there between "that," and
what you are talking about? The Samaritan children had no voice of
their own in the business, it is true; but neither had Iphigenia:
the Greek girl was certainly neither boiled, nor eaten; but that
only makes a difference in the dramatic effect; not in the
principle.
DORA (biting her lip). Well, then, tell us what we ought to mean.
As if you didn't teach it all to us, and mean it yourself, at this
moment, more than we do, if you wouldn't be tiresome!
L. I mean, and always have meant, simply this, Dora;--that the
will of God respecting us is that we shall live by each other's
happiness, and life; not by each other's misery, or death.
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