Page:My Dear Cornelia (1924).pdf/101

 and the lady are very much the same—beneath the skin."

"I hate you!" Cornelia cried. "I could stick you full of pins."

"Beneath the skin," I continued, "Judith and the lady consist of closely similar metabolic apparatus and so forth, and a certain amount of vacant space—and nothing else. And since the apparatus is the same, there is every reason to believe that it functions in essentially the same way in performing the duties assigned to it by biological destiny."

"You are disgusting," said Cornelia.

"If I dwelt too long on the point, I should be," I agreed. "Viscera and vacancy: that is what Judith and the lady have beneath the skin. And that is why I think the naturalistic novelists are foolish if they dwell too long there."

"Is this your nice theory?"

"No," I said, "it isn't; but it is a sort of basis for my theory. First, we establish the fact that the interesting and precious and desirable self isn't 'inside.' Then, don't you see, it must be outside. Well, it is outside. It doesn't exist till it gets outside. All the differentiation, the distinction, the qualities, which you and I value, are outside and are created by means analogous to the means of