DON JUAN. True; but since you have endured so much you may as well
endure to the end. Long before this sterilization which I described
becomes more than a clearly foreseen possibility, the reaction will
begin. The great central purpose of breeding the race, ay, breeding it
to heights now deemed superhuman: that purpose which is now hidden in a
mephitic cloud of love and romance and prudery and fastidiousness, will
break through into clear sunlight as a purpose no longer to be confused
with the gratification of personal fancies, the impossible realization
of boys' and girls' dreams of bliss, or the need of older people for
companionship or money. The plain-spoken marriage services of the
vernacular Churches will no longer be abbreviated and half suppressed
as indelicate. The sober decency, earnestness and authority of their
declaration of the real purpose of marriage will be honored
and accepted, whilst their romantic vowings and pledgings and
until-death-do-us-partings and the like will be expunged as unbearable
frivolities. Do my sex the justice to admit, Senora, that we have always
recognized that the sex relation is not a personal or friendly relation
at all.

ANA. Not a personal or friendly relation! What relation is more
personal? more sacred? more holy?

DON JUAN. Sacred and holy, if you like, Ana, but not personally
friendly. Your relation to God is sacred and holy: dare you call it
personally friendly? In the sex relation the universal creative energy,
of which the parties are both the helpless agents, over-rides and
sweeps away all personal considerations and dispenses with all personal
relations. The pair may be utter strangers to one another, speaking
different languages, differing in race and color, in age and
disposition, with no bond between them but a possibility of that
fecundity for the sake of which the Life Force throws them into one
another's arms at the exchange of a glance. Do we not recognize this by
allowing marriages to be made by parents without consulting the woman?
Have you not often expressed your disgust at the immorality of the
English nation, in which women and men of noble birth become acquainted
and court each other like peasants? And how much does even the peasant
know of his bride or she of him before he engages himself? Why, you
would not make a man your lawyer or your family doctor on so slight an
acquaintance as you would fall in love with and marry him!

ANA. Yes, Juan: we k