“Pity for the other people!” said Florence.
(We are always undecided in the club whether to put Virginia out of the room or whether to hug her. So, in our indecision, we leave her alone.)
I said: “We used to be told to reverence the old. I say to you, reverence every one. If you think of self as a symbol of the complete Self, as the holy thing, then you will reverence the self in every human being, in every creature.”
“I don’t think,” said Virginia, “that we have much sympathy with the self in animals we kill to eat.”
“That,” I answered, “is another question. It has nothing to do with what we are saying now.”
“I think it has,” she protested.
“Then,” I said, “if you reverence self, and understand and respect the self in every person, how could you quarrel with any one?”
“You expect us to know an awful lot,” said Virginia, “to know every one.”
“Certainly,” I answered. “Is not that our idea, to reach what we desire through understanding and sympathy with every one?”
They said they couldn’t respect every one. Some people they couldn’t help, as Henry said, pitying.