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 full 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 full in the
person of their parents. If they have forgotten the full 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 full after the children have been born,
and the children are punished for this.
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