"Yes," she said, "that's what has puzzled me. Don't you love human
beings?"

"Not as a rule," he confessed.

"But then--what is it you are interested in? Yourself?"

"People tell me that's the case. And there's a sense in which it's
true--I'm wrapped up in the thought of myself as an art-work. I've a
certain vision of the possibilities of my own being, and I'm trying
to realize it. And if I do, then I can write books and communicate
it to other people, so that they can judge it, and see if it's any
better than the vision they have. It is a higher kind of
unselfishness, I think."

"I see," said Corydon. "It's not easy to understand."

"No one understands it," he replied. "People are taught that they
must sacrifice themselves for others; and they do it, blindly and
stupidly, and never ask if the other person is worthy of the
sacrifice--and still less if they themselves have anything worth
sacrificing."

Corydon had clenched her hands suddenly. "How I hate the religion of
self-sacrifice!" she cried.

"Mine is a religion of self-development," said Thyrsis. "I am
sacrificing myself for what other people ought to be."