independence and
irresponsibility
cannot co-exist
Adapted from a scene in the book, Commodore Hornblower, by C.S. Forester who writes that Hornblower:
Recalling himself to reality, he forced himself to remember with what a bubble of excitement he had received his orders back to active service, the light heart with which he had left his child, the feeling of – there was no blinking the matter – emancipation with which he had parted from his wife.
The prospect of once more being entirely his own master, of not having to defer to Barbara’s wishes, of not being discommoded by Richard’s teeth, had seemed most attractive then.
And here he was complaining to himself about the burden of responsibility, when responsibility was the inevitable price one had to pay for independence; irresponsibility was something which, in the very nature of things, could not co-exist with independence.
It is part of the Hornblower lore that when Gene Roddenberry created the Star Trek character of Captain James T. Kirk, he used Hornblower and the Hornblower books as a model.
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