"And never will as long as you trust them," added Paul; "but only when you begin to doubt them."
"I quite agree with you there. Again, I do not a bit mind being laughed at; in fact, if the joke is a good one, I am ready to join in it; so I generally show my real self to people, and am not afraid of what is called 'giving myself away'. Consequently people as a rule show their real selves to me."
"It is a great mistake to be afraid of 'giving oneself away'. I don't know a more paralyzing form of fear."
"It seems to me," replied Isabel, "that life is very much like swimming or skating; one has to let oneself go before one can get on at all."
"And we have all got to be ourselves. The best possible edition of ourselves, I admit; but still ourselves, and not anybody else; and therefore we must expand along our own lines, and not along other people's."
"Do you remember the duchess's baby in Alice in Wonderland, who 'made a very ugly baby but a very handsome pig'? Now so many people are like that; they make stupendous efforts to become ugly babies, instead of settling down comfortably as handsome pigs."
"Milton's Satan was wiser in his generation than the children of light," remarked Paul; "he preferred ruling as a handsome pig to serving as an ugly baby, if you remember; only he put the case in more forceful words. Still the sentiment is the same. But he was not supposed to take the highest view."
"But wouldn't you rather be the ruling pig than the serving baby?" asked Isabel.
"I'm afraid I would; but that doesn't make it right."
"Still you said just now that we must be ourselves and not anybody else."