FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131  
132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   >>   >|  
ittering eye," or as many as he could sweep with his glance. "I suppose that the greatest hypocrite at this table, where we are all so frankly hypocrites together, will not deny that marriage is the prime cause of divorce. In fact, divorce couldn't exist without it." The women all looked bewilderedly at one another, and then appealingly at the men. None of these answered directly, but the bachelor softly intoned out of Gilbert and Sullivan--he was of that date: "'A paradox, a paradox; A most ingenious paradox!'" "Yes," the stop-gap defiantly assented. "A paradox; and all aboriginal verities, all giant truths, are paradoxes." "Giant truths is good," the bachelor noted, but the stop-gap did not mind him. He turned to the host: "I suppose that if divorce is an evil, and we wish to extirpate it, we must strike at its root, at marriage?" The host laughed. "I prefer not to take the floor. I'm sure we all want to hear what you have to say in support of your mammoth idea." "Oh yes, indeed," the women chorused, but rather tremulously, as not knowing what might be coming. "Which do you mean? That all truth is paradoxical, or that marriage is the mother of divorce?" "Whichever you like." "The last proposition is self-evident," the stop-gap said, supplying himself with a small bunch of the grapes which nobody ever takes at dinner; the hostess was going to have coffee for the women in the drawing-room, and to leave the men to theirs with their tobacco at the table. "And you must allow that if divorce is a good thing or a bad thing, it equally partakes of the nature of its parent. Or else there's nothing in heredity." "Oh, come!" one of the husbands said. "Very well!" the stop-gap submitted. "I yield the word to you." But as the other went no further, he continued. "The case is so clear that it needs no argument. Up to this time, in dealing with the evil of divorce, if it is an evil, we have simply been suppressing the symptoms; and your Swiss method--" "Oh, it isn't _mine_," the man said who had stated it. "--Is only a part of the general practice. It is another attempt to make divorce difficult, when it is marriage that ought to be made difficult." "Some," the daring bachelor said, "think it ought to be made impossible." The girl across the table began to laugh hysterically, but caught herself up and tried to look as if she had not laughed at all. "I don't go as far as th
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131  
132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

divorce

 

marriage

 
paradox
 

bachelor

 
suppose
 

difficult

 

truths

 

laughed

 

hostess

 

submitted


coffee

 
drawing
 

dinner

 

parent

 
nature
 
partakes
 
equally
 

tobacco

 

heredity

 
husbands

impossible
 

daring

 

attempt

 

hysterically

 
caught
 
practice
 

dealing

 

simply

 

suppressing

 

grapes


argument
 

symptoms

 

general

 

stated

 

method

 

continued

 

Whichever

 

ingenious

 

glance

 
defiantly

greatest

 
Gilbert
 
Sullivan
 

hypocrite

 

assented

 
aboriginal
 

turned

 
verities
 

paradoxes

 
intoned