"I have no conscience, none," she added; "but I would not like to bring a
soul into this world. When it sinned and when it suffered something like a
dead hand would fall on me--'You did it, you, for your own pleasure you
created this thing! See your work!' If it lived to be eighty it would
always hang like a millstone round my neck, have the right to demand good
from me, and curse me for its sorrow. A parent is only like to God--if his
work turns out bad, so much the worse for him; he dare not wash his hands
of it. Time and years can never bring the day when you can say to your
child: 'Soul, what have I to do with you?'"
Waldo said dreamingly:
"It is a marvellous thing that one soul should have power to cause
another."
She heard the words as she heard the beating of the horses' hoofs; her
thoughts ran on in their own line.
"They say, 'God sends the little babies.' Of all the dastardly revolting
lies men tell to suit themselves, I hate that most. I suppose my father
said so when he knew he was dying of consumption, and my mother when she
knew she had nothing to support me on, and they created me to feed like a
dog from stranger hands. Men do not say God sends the books, or the
newspaper articles, or the machines they make; and then sigh, and shrug
their shoulders and say they can't help it.
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