“What do you mean?”
“I mean, for instance, with the ocean or mountains.”
“But,” I said, “there you cannot know. With people it is so real and close.”
The trouble is, they cannot feel so with those they dislike or wish to criticize; and this subject comes up again and again, with amusing variations.
Virginia takes dislikes to faces; Florence cannot “stand” some people whom she greatly admires; Marian will not be deprived of the pleasure of “knocking” one particular girl. From what I gather, their gossip is not of the malicious sort, and this over-criticism and sensitiveness is, as I told them, a weakness and limitation of youth. They have not yet learned to use the good of people for their own good. For people in the street, however, they often have intense sympathy; and kindness for the stranger. Marian spoke again of the apartment houses behind her school, with their hundreds of windows.
“You would like to tear their walls away, wouldn’t you,” asked Ruth, “to see what is going on?”
“I don’t know,” said Marian, “but I can’t help thinking of all those different lives in there.”
Virginia said whenever her mother saw strangers who looked as if they liked her, she spoke to them.
“That,” I answered, “can seldom be done, except with children; because, you see, the world is not as we wish it, though it might be better were it so; and since the other person may not understand, we dare not try to understand him. Often on a sunny, happy morning, when I get into a car, I feel like greeting the motorman, and every person I meet. But how can I? They would misunderstand.”
“Perhaps,” said Virginia, “that is the motive of the fresh young men who sometimes try to speak to you on the street.”