“I understand the reason of it all better now and blame nobody. The law was simply working itself out into its natural results. If I suffered--well, who doesn’t suffer as the mills of the gods grind, set in operation as they usually are by ignorant hands? My father and mother were natural enemies, who should have lived as far asunder as the poles, instead of enacting a hideous, lifelong tragedy in the name of marriage. I am quite sure they hated each other energetically most of the time and bitterly the rest of it, yet they stuck together and brought seven children into the world to suffer in a thousand ways from their incompatible union, and considered themselves virtuous in so doing. Yet, that is the kind of thing that passes for morality. Long ago I saw that it was a foul lie, and the direst foe to morality. When my eldest sister was married, and I heard the words ‘What God has joined together let no man put asunder,’ clinching the curse, as it were, it set me to thinking and asking questions. Somebody explained to me that all husbands and wives were joined together by God, and could not possibly be separated without going violently against His will, except by death, and that, of course, was in accordance with His will. I pondered over this with a heavy heart. Then God had united my father and mother. This dreadful work had been done by His hand, and I was wroth against Him, for every day I felt and saw the evil effects of it. “Is it strange that ours was a loveless family? With no love between husband and wife, could they be expected to love their children? Can a mother be expected to love the child who comes unwelcome to her arms? Can a father love children in whom he sees the features and traits of the woman to whom he is hopelessly bound and yet hates? We were all victims of violated law, so who was to blame? Ignorance! Ignorance, which is responsible for all the evil and all the suffering under the sun. In fact ignorance is evil, and evil is ignorance, nothing more nor less. You know Shakspeare says there is no darkness but ignorance. “We frequently have well-meaning persons say that ill-mated married folk should stick together ‘for the sake of the children.’ Yet for that very reason they should separate. Their children and children’s children pay the penalty of their violation of the laws of harmony, and still farther down the line of the future goes the misery that had its origin in a hateful marriage. Pray tell me how is morality served thereby?