West Of The Sun, Edgar Pangborn [world of reading txt] 📗

whose right to life and welfare is as certain as his own. Approach the study of society from any direction you will, that problem is at the heart of it, and must be a thousand generations from now, because it must be met anew with every infant born. We think, here, that the most rewarding answer is in the old virtues of self-knowledge, charity, honesty, forbearance, patience. Now, those are all words that demand definition and multiple definition; on that basis we have our children study them, search the depth and height of them, in the not so simple problems of childhood through the tougher ones of adolescence and maturity. We make them understand that lip service will not do: if one is to make himself honest he must eat honesty with breakfast, sweat with it in the sun, laugh and play and suffer with it and lie down with it at night until it's near as the oxygen in his blood. Yes, we aim high. Cruelly high, would you say? We don't think so. Perfection is a cold spot on top of a mountain, and nobody ever climbed there. We have trouble and fun and arguments; sometimes the garden weeds grow until tomorrow or the day after, but we sleep well.

DOROTHY: Speaking of perfection and goodness and things and stuff—I know it was Paul who put those violin strings by Nan's bed, but which one of you supplied them?

SLADE: Well, he told me—

DOROTHY: Will it be all right if I reach over this daughter of mine and kiss you?

SLADE: They did brief us, back on Earth, that we must respect local customs—

MIJOK: And perhaps even another drink could do him no harm.

PAKRIAA: He's pied.

ELIS: I would not say that. Speaking as Governor, I say that the local wine industry deserves every encouragement it can get—and has, ever since Samis' favorite kink had kittens in the bottom of the vest bat.

SAMIS: Correction.[219]

MIJOK: Best vat. Speaking as Lieutenant Governor. Just elected—did it myself.

MUSON: The toastmistress has been quiet lately.

NISANA: Who, me?

PAUL: By acclamation, yes.

NISANA: Le'me think. We did drink to the children—those in bed and those who ought to be—

HELEN: 'Ception.

DOROTHY: Great big woman. You weigh a ton, sweet stuff, 'n' so do your eyelids, they do.

NISANA: And we drank to the olifants. No no—I am too happy—my mind is a lake without a breeze. You propose the toast, Pakriaa.

SALLY: Matter of fact I'm already sort of whooliollicky—I think—

DOROTHY: Hey—maybe it's not just the wine. Paul—Doc—it must be almost thirteen hours—

PAUL: Yes—yes, almost. Maybe you'd better—

SALLY: No, let's have one more toast. At least one more, Pakriaa?

WRIGHT: I'll drink with you, Pakriaa.

PAKRIAA: Oh—let us be happy. Friends, I give you the wine itself and the earth that made it. I give you birth and death and the journey of our days and nights between them, the shining of green fields, the patience of the forest, the little stars, the great stars, the love and the thought, the labor and the laughter, the good morning sky.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of West Of The Sun, by Edgar Pangborn