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Excerpted Inspirations #185

  • Writer: Linda Odhner, with photos by Liz Kufs
    Linda Odhner, with photos by Liz Kufs
  • Jun 30
  • 0 min read
[Cousin Matthew, a native Virginian visiting his Scottish Highland relatives from his current home in London, discusses the risks involved in publishing a political journal in the year 1773.] Lauchlin put in her oar, despite Ronald’s kick. “You and father were in all kinds of danger for the Prince when you were even younger than we!” she reminded her reproachfully. Mother rallied instantly. “Aye, and in exile at your ages,” was the unanswerable retort. Lauchlin subsided. Ronald glared at her, wondering if she would ever learn to hold her tongue. They both looked appealingly at Cousin Matthew. “Thing is,” he pointed out shrewdly, “they’ve got to do something to oppose tyranny. They can’t just sit down and accept it, any more than you could at that age.” “We’ve had to learn,” said Kildornie with bitterness. “We have to face reality, and what cannot be changed must be endured.” “Quite right for your generation,” returned the surprising old man, no longer looking in the least like a pixie, but more like a sage. “You’ve had your battle; you’ve fought for an ideal. Now it’s their turn.” He jerked his chin at the enthralled Lauchlin and Ronald. “It’s their natural right, to refuse to accept your reality, to change what cannot be endured, to put their lives at stake, if need be, for their own ideals.” Deep silence fell for a moment. The fire crackled in the enormous fireplace. [...] “You’re right, surely,” said Father at last. “’Tis the right of the young to be embattled idealists, and heaven help the world if they ever do accept unquestioning the reality of their elders.” “I’m not that old, myself!” complained Mother. “Well, O Socrates, what more? What new ideas do our young fight for?” He had an answer. “A new kind of justice, for everyone. I’ve got a notion, m’dear, that the old world is about to venture into a whole new way of thinking. Might be they’ll look back after a thousand years or so and call it the beginning of the Age of Humanity. We’ve already got a few people thinking about the rights of the ordinary man. Some day we may even decide that folks like Indians and slaves and Jews and Highlanders and females are people too, hmm?” “Hear, hear!” cried Mother, quite carried away by that last bit. “A braw dream,” conceded Father. “And a braw lot of blood will be spilt over it, I’m thinking,” he added a bit grimly. “The more printer’s ink now, the less blood later,” urged Cousin Matthew. “Get the idea into people’s heads. Especially the young, who aren’t as fixed to their own prejudices.” Sally Watson, The Hornet’s Nest (1968), pp. 43-44

 
 
 
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