aWhen Isaac denied Esau the birthright due him as firstborn son, loss of the blessing was more grievous than that of lands and chattels. The main worth of what we inherit is social or psychic. The heir in Compton-Burnett's A Heritage and Its History looks forward not to wealth or grand...
Growing up in a Fundamentalist church, I came to know by heart moral tales in the Bible like the Old Testament story of how the ravenously hungry Esau gave his birthright away to his trickster brother, Jacob, for a bowl of soup—called “a mess of pottage.” My third collage box is di...