silver tie that he intended to wear to-morrow (Joyce had never seen it); and what on earth are we going to do to amuse these people after dinner?
". . . and Mother and Daddy and all friends kind and dear; and let to-morrow be a nice day for the Picnic. . . ."
Poor little devils, he thought; they seem as far away from me as if they were kittens or puppies. People pretend that children are just human beings of a smaller size, but I think they're something quite different. They live in a world with only three dimensions, a physical world immersed in the moment, a reasonable world, a world without that awful sorcery of a fourth measurement that makes us ill at ease. What is it their world lacks? Is it self-consciousness, is it beauty, is it sex? (Three names for the same thing, perhaps.) Little Sylvia with her full wet eyes, what torments of desire she would arouse some day in some deluded stripling.
Strange world of theirs: a world that has no awareness of good and evil; a world merely pretty, whereas ours is beautiful. A world that knows what it wants; whereas we are never quite sure. . . .
He looked at them with amazement. Where did they come from, how did they get there?
