AUGUST STRINDBERG, The Father

How blest is he who his progenitors

With pride remembers, to the list'ner tells

The story of their greatness, of their deeds,

And, silently rejoicing, sees himself

Link'd to this goodly chain! For the same stock

Bears not the monster and the demigod:

A line, or good or evil, ushers in

The glory or the terror of the world.

All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

The strength of a man and the softness of a woman, the institution of the family, and the differentiation of occupations are mere militant necessities of an age of physical force; where population is balanced and abundant, much childbearing becomes an evil rather than a blessing to the State; where violence comes but rarely and off-spring are secure, there is less necessity--indeed there is no necessity--for an efficient family, and the specialization of the sexes with reference to their children's needs disappears.

H. G. WELLS, The Time Machine

Good families are generally worse than any others.

If I were to picture a perfect family, it should be a union of people of individual and marked character, who through love have come to a perfect appreciation of each other, and who so wisely understand themselves and one another that each may move freely along his or her own track without jar or jostle--a family where affection is always sympathetic and receptive, but never inquisitive--where all personal delicacies are respected--and where there is a sense of privacy and seclusion in following one's own course, unchallenged by the watchfulness of others, yet withal a sense of society and support in a knowledge of the kind dispositions and interpretations of all around.