From near the end of Chap­ter 9:

It will be very hard, surely, to jus­tify to the gen­tle reader what must seem a loose­ness in our heroine’s behav­ior. Remem­ber, then, that even Noah, the only man deemed wor­thy of being saved from a world’s destruc­tion, was described as being merely “right­eous in his gen­er­a­tion.” The man­ners of the time and place in which Laura lived took an exceed­ingly friv­o­lous view of the impor­tance of hold­ing hands, and indeed of other, some­what more search­ing lib­er­ties. Moral­ity is eter­nal, but its modes fluc­tu­ate. A Japan­ese, they say, thinks noth­ing of bathing naked in the same tub with a stranger of the oppo­site sex, but a clasp of hands between the two would be a turn­ing point. We our­selves observe with great calm our young ladies walk­ing on beaches with all but a half-dozen cru­cial square inches of their skins exposed; an hour later, we are shocked to see one of them come in to din­ner wear­ing a skirt which ends an inch above the knee. Laura was, beyond doubt, right­eous in her gen­er­a­tion; yet, betrothed though she was, she per­mit­ted Stephen Eng­lish to hold her hand. That this was an inad­vis­able kind­ness will per­haps be seen in the sequel.

p. 107

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you sub­scribe to my RSS feed!

Tags: Aurora Dawn, author's tone toward character, Herman Wouk, heroine, Insight, morality