TANNER. All the other passions were in me before; but they were idle and aimless--mere childish greedinesses and cruelties, curiosities and fancies, habits and superstitions, grotesque and ridiculous to the mature intelligence. When they suddenly began to shine like newly lit flames it was by no light of their own, but by the radiance of the dawning moral passion. That passion dignified them, gave them conscience and meaning, found them a mob of appetites and organized them into an army of purposes and principles. My soul was born of that passion. ANN. I noticed that you got more sense. You were a dreadfully destructive boy before that. TANNER. Destructive! Stuff! I was only mischievous. ANN. Oh Jack, you were very destructive. You ruined all the young fir trees by chopping off their leaders with a wooden sword. You broke all the cucumber frames with your catapult. You set fire to the common: the police arrested Tavy for it because he ran away when he couldn't stop you. You-- TANNER. Pooh! pooh! pooh! these were battles, bombardments, stratagems to save our scalps from the red Indians. You have no imagination, Ann. I am ten times more destructive now than I was then. The moral passion has taken my destructiveness in hand and directed it to moral ends. I have become a reformer, and, like all reformers, an iconoclast. I no longer break cucumber frames and burn gorse bushes: I shatter creeds and demolish idols. ANN. [bored] I am afraid I am too feminine to see any sense in destruction. Destruction can only destroy. TANNER. Yes. That is why it is so useful. Construction cumbers the ground with institutions made by busybodies. Destruction clears it and gives us breathing space and liberty. ANN. It's no use, Jack. No woman will agree with you there. TANNER. That's because you confuse construction and destruction with creation and murder. They're quite different: I adore creation and abhor murder. Yes: I adore it in tree and flower, in bird and beast, even in you. [A flush of interest and delight suddenly clears the growing perplexity and boredom from her face]. It was the creative instinct that led you to attach me to you by bonds that have left their mark on me to this day. Yes, Ann: the old childish compact between us was an unconscious love compact. ANN. Jack! TANNER. Oh, don't be alarmed-- ANN. I am not alarmed. TANNER. [whimsically] Then you ought to be: where are your principles? ANN. Jack: are you serious or are you not? TANNER. Do you mean about the moral passion? ANN. No, no; the other one. [Confused] Oh! you are so silly; one never knows how to take you. TANNER. You must take me quite seriously. I am your guardian; and it is my duty to improve your mind. ANN. The love compact is over, then, is it? I suppose you grew tired of me? TANNER. No; but the moral passion made our childish relations impossible. A jealous sense of my new individuality arose in me. ANN. You hated to be treated as a boy any longer. Poor Jack!