"That's what makes it all seem so unfair."

Smiling, the woman turned the back of the chair to the brightest glare
of sunshine, draped a light rug over the invalid's knees, and seated
herself in a wicker chair, facing him.

"Makes all what seem so unfair?"

"The indignity of being born human." He accepted a cigarette and waxed
didactic: "The one thing that the ego can find to reconcile it with
existence is belief in its own uniquity."

"I don't think," she interrupted with a severe face belied by amused
eyes, "that sounds quite nice."

"Uniquity? Because it sounds like iniquity? They are not unrelated.
What makes iniquity seem attractive is as a rule its departure from the
commonplace."

"But you were saying--?"

"Merely it's our personal belief that our emotions and sensations and
ways of thought are peculiar to ourselves, individually, that sometimes
makes the game seem worth the scandal."

"Yes: one presumes we all do think that..."

"But no sooner does one get firmly established in that particular phase
of self-complacence than along comes Life, grinning like a gamin, and
kicks over our pretty house of cards--shows us up to ourselves by