'It gives sympathy and insight; it's so awfully subtle and delicate,'
he answered. 'A little of it travels down on every ray and soaks down
into you. It makes you feel inclined to stick to other people and
understand them. That's sympathy.'
'_Sympathie_,' said Jimbo for his sister's benefit apparently, but in
reality because he himself was barely treading water.
'But sympathy,' the other went on, 'is no good without insight--which
means seeing things as others see them--from inside. That's insight---
'
'Inside sight,' she corrected him.
'That's it. You see, the first stuff that existed in the universe was
this star-stuff--nebulae. Having nothing else to stick to, it stuck to
itself, and so got thicker. It whirled in vortices. It grew together
in sympathy, for sympathy brings together. It whirled and twirled
round itself till it got at last into solid round bodies--worlds--
stars. It passed, that is, from mere dreaming into action. And when
the rays soak into you, they change your dreaming into action. You
feel the desire to do things--for others.'
'Ah! yes,' repeated Jimbo, 'like that.'
'You must be full of vorty seas, then, because you're so long,' said
Monkey, 'but you'll never grow into a solid round body----'
He took a handful of her hair and smothered the remainder of the
sentence.
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