"No doubt we are 'the peculiar people," said Mrs. Gano, calmly deserting her first postulate, and seeming quite equal to facing "the comic laugh."
"I mean," said Val, "that if there never was any 'me' in the world before, the world's a different place now there's 'me' in it."
They laughed with less misgiving.
"You have Goethe on your side, my dear," said her father. "Goethe says Nature is always interesting because she's always renewing the observer."
"I like my way of putting it best," the girl maintained—"sounds more interesting."
"I've found out, Val," said Ethan, "that most people who make believe that human nature is everywhere the same, and that we're all as alike as pins in a row, usually except themselves. That shows they're wiser than their theories."
"No one denies," said John Gano, "that a slight difference in the conditions makes some difference in the result. We were speaking broadly of the main outlines of life. They are curiously common to us all."
"I don't see those 'common outlines,'" Ethan answered, "any more than I see the same pattern twice in a kaleidoscope. I see the same boundary walls—birth and death—and all between the two, endlessly different for each."
"Yes, yes; I believe it's like that," said Val.