FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   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   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   >>   >|  
s what notions are seething in the bean of any girl you talk to at Palla's house!" Estridge laughed: "What do you care, Jim?" "Well, I wouldn't care if they all didn't seem so exactly like one's own sort. Why, to look at them, talk to them, you'd never suppose them queer! The young girl you take in to dinner usually looks as though butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. And the chances are that she's all for socialism, self-determination, trial marriages and free love! "Hell's bells! I'm no prude. I like to overstep conventions, too. But this wholesale wrecking of the social structure would be ruinous for a girl like Palla." "But Palla doesn't believe in free love." "She hears it talked about by cracked illuminati." "Rain on a duck's back, Jim!" "Rain drowns young ducks." "You mean all this spouting will end in a deluge?" "I do. And then look for dead ducks." "You're not very respectful toward modernism," remarked Estridge, smiling. Then Jim broke loose: "Modernism? You yourself said that all these crazy social notions--crazy notions in art, literature, music--arise from some sort of physical degeneration, or from the perversion or checking of normal physical functions." "Usually they do----" "Well," continued Shotwell, "it's mostly due to perversion, in my opinion. Women have had too much of a hell of a run for their money during this war. They've broken down all the fences and they're loose and running all over the world. "If they'd only kept their fool heads! But no. Every germ in the wind lodged in their silly brains! Biff. They want sex equality and a pair of riding breeches! Bang! They kick over the cradle and wreck the pantry. "Wifehood? Played out! Motherhood? In the discards! Domestic partnership?--each sex to its own sphere? Ha-ha! That was all very well yesterday. But woman as a human incubator and brooder is an obsolete machine. Why the devil should free and untramelled womanhood hatch out young? "If they choose to, casually, all right. But it's purely a matter for self-determination. If a girl cares to take off her Sam Brown belt and her puttees long enough to nurse a baby, it's a matter that concerns her, not humanity at large. Because the social revolution has settled all such details as personal independence and the same standard for both sexes. So, _a bas_ Madame Grundy! _A la lanterne_ with the old regime! No--hang it all, I'm through!" "Don't you like Palla any
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   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   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
notions
 

social

 

perversion

 
matter
 
determination
 
physical
 

wouldn

 

Estridge

 

discards

 

sphere


partnership
 
Domestic
 

yesterday

 

lodged

 

brains

 

cradle

 

pantry

 

Wifehood

 

Played

 

equality


riding
 

breeches

 

Motherhood

 
puttees
 

independence

 
standard
 
personal
 

details

 

revolution

 

Because


settled

 

regime

 
Grundy
 
Madame
 

lanterne

 
humanity
 

womanhood

 

untramelled

 

choose

 

casually


brooder

 

obsolete

 
machine
 

purely

 
concerns
 
running
 

incubator

 

conventions

 
overstep
 

wholesale