"You feel the force of tradition, then?"
"Oh, yes—in everything. It acts for generations in the blood—it makes people do all sorts of things, good and bad, quite without reason."
Lady Garribardine chuckled—she loved discussions.
"How does it act in yourself, for instance?"
"I have tried to stop its action in myself, because I saw the effects of the traditions of my class in my brothers and sisters, and how stultifying it was."
"You certainly seem to have emerged from them in an extraordinary manner—how did you set about it?"
Katherine thought a little and then answered deliberately.
"I always wanted to know the reason why of everything and I soon felt sure that there was no such thing as chance, but that everything which happened was part of some scheme—and I always desired to be able to distinguish between appearance and reality, and I got to understand that personal emotion distorts all reality and creates appearance, and so I began to try to dissociate things from personal emotion in my judgments of them."
"Yes, but how about tradition?"
"Tradition suggested certain views and actions to me—but looked at without emotion, I saw that they were foolish. I analysed my brothers' and sisters' ideas and instincts because I wanted to see if what I did not like in them was inevitable in myself too from the force of tradition or if there was any way to get rid of stupidities."