You
poets, you young people want to turn it to delight. Turn it to delight.
That may be one way out. In a little while, if you have any brains worth
thinking about, you will be satisfied, and then you will come up here to
the greater things. The old religions and their new offsets want still,
I see, to suppress all these things. Let them suppress. If they can
suppress. In their own people. Either road will bring you here at last
to the eternal search for knowledge and the great adventure of power.'
'But incidentally,' said Rachel Borken; 'incidentally you have half of
humanity, you have womankind, very much specialised for--for this love
and reproduction that is so much less needed than it was.'
'Both sexes are specialised for love and reproduction,' said Karenin.
'But the women carry the heavier burden.'
'Not in their imaginations,' said Edwards.
'And surely,' said Kahn, 'when you speak of love as a phase--isn't it a
necessary phase? Quite apart from reproduction the love of the sexes
is necessary. Isn't it love, sexual love, which has released the
imagination? Without that stir, without that impulse to go out from
ourselves, to be reckless of ourselves and wonderful, would our lives be
anything more than the contentment of the stalled ox?'
'The key that opens the door,' said Karenin, 'is not the goal of the
journey.
Pages:
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276