7“Oh, poor little things!” cried Starlight. “Oh! poor, little, pitiful pitiless creatures! This story hurts me. I couldn’t endure it, if it were anything more than a dream. Why were they all so hard upon each other and so deaf to the sorrow in each other?”
“We knew no better. This world now has a tempered air. In this world we breathe mercy with our first fluttering gasp. We are so taught and trained to think of others that their pain is ours. But two thousand years ago men and women were halfway back to crude Nature. Our motives took us unawares. We breathed infections. Our food was poisoned. Our passions were fevers. We were only beginning to learn the art of being human.”
“But didn’t Fanny—?” began Firefly.
“Yes,” said Willow; “didn’t Fanny, who was naturally so wise about love, didn
