"Quite." She closed her eyes, and stopped her gentle, even stroking of the idol.
"Of course you never did see America first," I laughed.
Kathleen Somers opened her eyes and spoke vehemently. "I've seen all there is of it to see, in transit to better places. Seeing America first! That can be borne. It's seeing America last that kills me. Seeing nothing else forever, till I die."
"You don't care for just beauty, regardless," I mused.
"Not a bit. Not unless it has meant something to man. I'm a humanist, I'm afraid."
Whether she was gradually developing remorse for my night in the cobwebby barn, I do not know. But anyhow she grew more gentle, from this point on. She really condescended to expound.
"I've never loved nature—she's a brute, and crawly besides. It's what man has done with nature that counts; it's nature with a human past. Peaks that have been fought for, and fought on, crossed by the feet of men, stared at by poets and saints. Most of these peaks aren't even named. Did you know that? Nature! What is Nature good for, I should like to know, except to kill us all in the end? Don't Ruskinize to me, my dear man."
"I won't. I couldn't. But, all the same, beauty is beauty, wherever and whatever. And, look where you will here, your eyes can't go wrong."
"I never look. I looked when I first came, and the stupidity, the emptiness, the mere wood and dirt and rock of it seemed like a personal insult. I should prefer the worst huddle of a Chinese city, I verily believe."
"You've not precisely the spirit of the pioneer, I can see."