You aren't heavy with me, for instance;
but, my dear, lead isn't in it when you are with your father."
"But what am I to do, if I'm like that?" asked the boy.
She held up her large, fat hand, and marked the points off on her
fingers.
"Three things," she said. "Firstly, get away from people who don't
understand you, and whom, incidentally, you don't understand. Secondly,
try to see how ridiculous you and everybody else always are; and,
thirdly, which is much the most important, don't think about yourself.
If I thought about myself I should consider how old and fat and ugly
I am. I'm not ugly, really; you needn't be foolish and tell me so. I
should spoil my life by trying to be young, and only eating devilled
codfish and drinking hot plum-juice, or whatever is the accepted remedy
for what we call obesity. We're all odd old things, as you say. We can
only get away from that depressing fact by doing something, and not
thinking about ourselves. We can all try not to be egoists. Egoism is
the really heavy quality in the world."
She paused a moment in this inspired discourse and whistled to Og,
who had stretched his weary limbs across a bed of particularly fine
geraniums.
"There!" she said, pointing, "if your dog had done that, you would be
submerged in depression at the thought of how vexed your father would
be.
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