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*
"Winthrop," I said, "what would be the situation if you happened to put
on the wrong pair of shoes, or unbuttoned your shirt collar, or drank the
wrong wine with the wrong roast---"
Winthrop looked horrified. "Bite your tongue. A long
line of ancestors, collaterals, and in-laws, the intertwined and inbred
aristocracy of New England, would turn in their graves. By Whittier, they
would. And my own blood would froth and boil in rebellion. Hortense would
hide her face in shame, and my post at the Brahman Bank of Boston would be
taken away. I would be marched through serried ranks of vice-presidents,
my vest-buttons would be snipped off, and my tie would be pulled around to
the back."
"What!" For one little miserable deviation?"
Winthrop's voice sank to an icy whisper. "There are
no little, miserable deviations. There are only deviations."
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-Winthrop Carver Cabwell and George,
characters in "Perfectly Formal", by Euphrosyne Durando, a character in
Isaac Asimov's "Cal", 1990
Gold: The Final Science Fiction
Collection, 1995
Part One: The Final Stories
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The authoritarian sets up some book, or
man, or tradition to establish the truth. The freethinker sets up reason
and private judgement to discover the truth.
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-Herbert Spencer
Freedom and Its Foundations
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