Solemn Man

Dear Solomon,

For just one man, you were so clever that we forget the moral of the story was not about how to be so clever. You gave us a parable of satisfactory conflict resolution by unsavory methods. By proposing to cleaver the child, you exposed the truth. The most righteous will compromise. Good will yield and kneel before bad, allowing their own family to suffer grievous injustice in order to avoid greater harm. You made it evident that the will to win at all cost is a disease and pride is a necrotic rot to be exposed to the public for cleaning. But what if the public had refused to look? What if the public proposed alternative facts? What if the public had supported handing the baby over to the wrong mother, and the real mother had been forced to watch it happen...to watch someone else raise her baby so that her baby might live? What if your solo-man ruling had been denied final authority? What if crowd apathy allowed the most righteous mother to be wronged? Solomon, I know you were a solemn man, but how did you know the crowd would honor your sincerity?

Respectfully, 

A Modern Moralist

My sketch of a baby that I love this year