Then the young people knew that they had
better look out. It is not as a general rule the eating of sour grapes
that causes the children's teeth to be set on edge. Well-to-do parents
seldom eat many sour grapes; the danger to the children lies in the
parents eating too many sweet ones.
I grant that at first sight it seems very unjust, that the parents should
have the fun and the children be punished for it, but young people should
remember that for many years they were part and parcel of their parents
and therefore had a good deal of the fun in the person of their parents.
If they have forgotten the fun now, that is no more than people do who
have a headache after having been tipsy overnight. The man with a
headache does not pretend to be a different person from the man who got
drunk, and claim that it is his self of the preceding night and not his
self of this morning who should be punished; no more should offspring
complain of the headache which it has earned when in the person of its
parents, for the continuation of identity, though not so immediately
apparent, is just as real in one case as in the other. What is really
hard is when the parents have the fun after the children have been born,
and the children are punished for this.
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