I may have reasons which have nothing to do with common
weaknesses, Mr Chief Secretary. I hope you will respect them.
CONFUCIUS [_after bowing to her in assent_] I will now put my question.
Have you, Mr Archbishop, any ground for assuming, as you seem to do,
that what has happened to you has not happened to other people as well?
BURGE-LUBIN. Yes, by George! I never thought of that.
THE ARCHBISHOP. I have never met any case but my own.
CONFUCIUS. How do you know?
THE ARCHBISHOP. Well, no one has ever told me that they were in this
extraordinary position.
CONFUCIUS. That proves nothing. Did you ever tell anybody that you were
in it? You never told us. Why did you never tell us?
THE ARCHBISHOP. I am surprised at the question, coming from so astute a
mind as yours, Mr Secretary. When you reach the age I reached before I
discovered what was happening to me, I was old enough to know and fear
the ferocious hatred with which human animals, like all other animals,
turn upon any unhappy individual who has the misfortune to be unlike
themselves in every respect: to be unnatural, as they call it.
Pages:
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333