Topic
Shaw: just do what must be done — this may not be happiness, but it is greatness. Schopenhauer on rights halved and duties doubled by marriage. Washington links happiness inseparably to moral duty. Eliot on children as the eternal marriage between love and obligation. James on being doomed to cling to life even when it is unendurable — which is either a description of duty or of stubbornness. Schumann sends the artist to illuminate the darkness of human hearts as the first duty of creative work. The collection takes duty seriously without romanticizing it: it is the thing you do because it needs doing, not because it feels good. Done consistently, the quotes suggest, it becomes a kind of character.