ocean, learn to think artistically, not only about the sea and sky and the sailors’ work, but also about the fact of monotony.
If you have become a criminal after being brought up “respectably,” as it is called, learn to think artistically about the relations and the contrast between what is called respectability and what is called crime.
If, on the contrary, you were brought up by thief parents, and have nothing in your memory but a life of more or less successful dodging of the police, learn to think artistically about the relations between your class and the police:—there is plenty that needs thinking out in that matter, and the world would be the better for hearing what you have to say about it.
And you, young mother, you at least have plenty of thought-material close at hand, in your baby’s cries and smiles. He will begin to cut his teeth presently, and the first use he will wish to make of them will be to bite you. You have to decide whether you will allow him to do so or not. Decide it carefully, according to what you know of your child’s heredity; not forgetting to take into account the amount of your own stamina and power of endurance. Do not forget that, in this matter more perhaps than in any other—
“As we chose in small things always
We must choose at last in great;
For ’t is then the gods deny us
Our own hand upon our fate.”[1]
Now you are going to ask me whether or not you shall let baby cut his teeth upon your flesh! How
- ↑ Mary Ellen Hinton.
