There will come a time, we know, when people will take delight in one another, when each will be a star to the others, and when each of us will listen to our fellows as to music.

The free people will walk upon the earth. People great in freedom. We will walk with open hearts, and our hearts will be pure of envy and greed. Therefore all humanity will be without malice, there will be nothing to divorce the heart from reason.

Then life will be one great service to humanity! Our figure will be raised to lofty heights, for to free people, all heights are attainable.

Then we shall live in truth and freedom, and in beauty; and those will be accounted the best who will the more widely embrace the world with their hearts, and whose love will be the profoundest. Those will be the best who will be the freest, for in them is the greatest beauty;

Then life will be great, and the people will be great who live that life.

'Esperanza' excerpted from The Mother by Maxim Gorky

(modified to 1st person plural by Iohn Ballard)

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