I am so
infected by his theory that I don't blame him. I feel myself nebulous as
regards him, as blurred at edge as he is."

"Oh, my dear child!" said Boase, "this--this in a way bigness of his
view just makes him more of an individualist than anyone. He limits
himself nowhere, but simply because it's all gain to his individuality.
That it is gain to others too is neither here nor there."

"It can be loss to the others; there is such a thing as all taking and
no giving."

"Ah, now you're looking on it from the point of view of payment! Take
for a moment the truer view that sorrow is as much gain as pleasure. The
only gain on earth is experience, and both emotions go to feed that."

"And then," continued Judith, pursuing her own line of thought,
"something in me seems to say that that wide view, that merging of
individuality, has the right idea at the root of it. It's an old strain
of Puritanism in me, I suppose, that tells me anything is good which
implies a loosening of individualism."

"I don't agree with you," said Boase energetically. "The root of all
things good and great is personality. The success of any movement
depends on the individuality of the leader, just as the whole of
creation depends, whether it knows it or not, on the personality of
Christ. 'Be individual' is a counsel of perfection--that is the only
drawback to it. If the great mass of people were only nearer perfection
the rein could be given to individualism; as it is it's a dangerous
horse to drive--it so often runs away with its driver. Conceive now of
the immense advantage it would be if, instead of a criminal being tried
by the clumsy machinery of the law, the judge were to investigate the
case quietly and thoroughly himself, get to know the man, his belongings
and environment, and then deal with him as he saw fit. The thing's not
workable; the judge might have an attack of indigestion that would
jaundice his view, or be in a rosy glow of sentimentality after port.
But if the judge could be depended on for sympathy and intuitiveness,
half the crime in the world would be stamped out. It's the same
everywhere. If priests could be allowed to discriminate between divorced
persons they thought it fit and desirable to remarry and those they did
not, much sin might be avoided. But it wouldn't work, simply because the
individual can't yet be trusted, and so it is quite right that the law
should be as it is. But that doesn't prevent rank individual