"What burden?"
"The burden of—oh, I can't tell exactly; the burden of just that terrible weight of life as it is lived there. Before I was ill it weighed on me so I felt old, sometimes centuries old—"
Jamie leaned forward eagerly, his face alive with feeling.
"Marcia, that's just the way I felt when I was in the hospital. I was bowed down in spirit with it—"
"You?" I asked in amazement.
"Yes, I; why not? I can't help myself; I am a child of my time. Only, I felt the burden of life as humanity lives it, not touched by locality as you felt it."
"But you have n't really lived that life yet, Jamie."
"Yes, I have, Marcia."
"How?"
"I wonder now if you will understand? I get it—I get all that through the imagination."