But we don t blame people who are just as pleased by cinnamon biscuits as cinnamon buns, or who would rather play around at music than train for performance. To do this, it isn t enough to show how matrimony resembles fine baking and virtuoso musicianship. Though she refuses to speak of the need for obedience, she does speak of the need for transcendence. The problem is that when push comes to shove, the author doesn t believe this herself. I m glad she enjoyed it.
Romanticism is a slippery slope.
If Mrs. Wallace wishes to agree with Keats that passions are holy in themselves, then ultimately she must agree with Shelley that monogamy is bunk. The final purpose of the book is to explain how to teach fidelity to our children. Here, not much need be said, because again the author is working at cross- purposes with herself. Her first main idea is that sexual desire is but one of many desires that kids have to understand from which she draws the practical suggestion that children should be encouraged to reason about sexual desire by analogy with the desires they understand already. This makes analogical reasoning a snare.