Dolly Delight ((LINK))

Other reasons for worry have less to do with social divisions than with subtle features of moral temperament. Central to our honoring others' moral importance is the acknowledgment that their lives unfold by designs that we cannot make for them, or alter beyond a modest measure. Yet we contemplate a world where parents' anticipated delight in a child might have less to do with the mysterious grace of reproduction than with the assurance that they have selected the embryo that can replicate its mother's career as a concert pianist, or be the football star its father never was-or just be lovable because it is "perfect." The selfish conviction that our own desires should be the world's compass points is among the greatest barriers to genuine respect for other individuals. The more able we become to treat others as vehicles for our idiosyncratic aspirations, the less easily we will maintain a regard for their intrinsic importance.

dolly delight

Levin had been married three months. He was happy, but not at all in the way he had expected to be. At every step he found his former dreams disappointed, and new, unexpected surprises of happiness. He was happy; but on entering upon family life he saw at every step that it was utterly different from what he had imagined. At every step he experienced what a man would experience who, after admiring the smooth, happy course of a little boat on a lake, should get himself into that little boat. He saw that it was not all sitting still, floating smoothly; that one had to think too, not for an instant to forget where one was floating; and that there was water under one, and that one must row; and that his unaccustomed hands would be sore; and that it was only to look at it that was easy; but that doing it, though very delightful, was very difficult. 041b061a72