Page 188 - erewhon

It is curious to read the lectures which the wiser heads
give to those who are meditating a change. They talk with
them as we talk with a spendthrift, and with about as much
success.
‘To be born,’ they say, ‘is a felony—it is a capital crime, for
which sentence may be executed at any moment after the
commission of the offence. You may perhaps happen to live
for some seventy or eighty years, but what is that, compared
with the eternity you now enjoy? And even though the sen-
tence were commuted, and you were allowed to live on for
ever, you would in time become so terribly weary of life that
execution would be the greatest mercy to you.
‘Consider the infinite risk; to be born of wicked parents
and trained in vice! to be born of silly parents, and trained
to unrealities! of parents who regard you as a sort of chat-
tel or property, belonging more to them than to yourself!
Again, you may draw utterly unsympathetic parents, who
will never be able to understand you, and who will do their
best to thwart you (as a hen when she has hatched a duck-
ling), and then call you ungrateful because you do not love
them; or, again, you may draw parents who look upon you
as a thing to be cowed while it is still young, lest it should
give them trouble hereafter by having wishes and feelings
of its own.
‘In later life, when you have been finally allowed to pass
muster as a full member of the world, you will yourself be-
come liable to the pesterings of the unborn—and a very
happy life you may be led in consequence! For we solicit so
strongly that a few only—nor these the best—can refuse us;

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