Could one conceive of her more mature, while
still as ignorant as she was, one must conclude that she would have
become an idiot on the spot--long before the end of that experience.
Luckily, people, whether mature or not mature (and who really is ever
mature?) are for the most part quite incapable of understanding what is
happening to them: a merciful provision of nature to preserve an average
amount of sanity for working purposes in this world . . . "
"But we, my dear Marlow, have the inestimable advantage of understanding
what is happening to others," I struck in. "Or at least some of us seem
to. Is that too a provision of nature? And what is it for? Is it that
we may amuse ourselves gossiping about each other's affairs? You for
instance seem--"
"I don't know what I seem," Marlow silenced me, "and surely life must be
amused somehow. It would be still a very respectable provision if it
were only for that end. But from that same provision of understanding,
there springs in us compassion, charity, indignation, the sense of
solidarity; and in minds of any largeness an inclination to that
indulgence which is next door to affection.
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