“We have come to love the hard thing,” I said, “because it is the growing thing. We get to fancy that when we do something hard we must be getting ahead, because generally it is true.”
Virginia said: “I like the poem by Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm:
‘When joy and duty clash,
Let duty go to smash.’”
“I wish joy and duty were the same,” I said, “and that is just what they are when love conquers. You have to do your duty when love fails, and so it often seems an unpleasant job.”
I spoke now of promises, and of how unnecessary they would be were it not for our failures in love. Then we went on to speak of obedience. We said that where love was perfect one would not think of obedience or disobedience. Obedience is a substitute for understanding. He who understands does not obey. He acts. We spoke of necessary obedience, the substitute, and then of the family where parents and children were so much at one that obedience was never mentioned.
“A person out of such a home,” said Virginia, “would not have enough to struggle against. I don’t like people who are just perfect, and have nothing to overcome.”
“We will never reach perfection,” they said; and they all, save Henry, agreed with me that the greatest joy in life was working for, rather than achieving our desires.
“But when we reach perfection,” he said, “we won’t wish for it any more.”
I refused to argue that problematic point.