A very cursory observation of human affairs is, indeed, enough to show ...

A very cursory observation of human affairs is, indeed, enough to show that the attraction may be as transient as it is powerful; that relations within the family may be both painful and oppressive; and that, while the cessation of affection between the spouses is likely to make itself quickly felt, disaffection between parents and children may smoulder unseen to the mischief of both.

To the religious man or woman, boy or girl, the trouble will appear as a cross to be borne, an infirmity or even a sin to be overcome: to others, as a misfortune to be endured as long as possible and then, if possible, thrown off. The increasing secularism of English thought might have been expected to compel a more critical attitude to the family than in fact we find.

Sexual ethic had attracted to itself so great a body of romantic sentiment: it was so closely associated, and even identified, with virtue in general, with the elevated, the praiseworthy, the respectable life, that the faintest note of dissidence might attract a disproportionate volume of suspicion and censure. Examples crowd on one's memory.