The millionth echo

Side by side they walked in quick step, as to the beating of a drum; eyes direct, as looking along a barrel, ears pricked for the millionth echo of an offensive remark.

George – Isabel Clarendon (1885)

You see what I am like; they take something from you, and you give them something else as well and say, ‘Take that, too.’ They strike you on the cheek and in your joy you offer them your whole back. Then they try to lure you like a dog with a bun, and you embrace them with your foolish paws and fall to kissing them with all your heart and soul.

Fyodor Dostoevsky - Polzunkov (1848)

It has always been obvious enough that core aspects of the human condition are old and intractable. We do not have the ability to eliminate them. The best we may do is ameliorate them, but we elect leaders who tell us otherwise. And too many of us listen to them.