Part 19 (1/2)

'What is star-stuff really then?' she asked.

'The primordial substance of the universe,' he answered solemnly, no whit ashamed of his inaccuracy.

'Ah yes!' piped Jimbo, quietly. _Ecole primaire_ he understood. This must be something similar.

'But what does it do, I mean, and why is it good for people to have it in them--on them--whatever it is?' she inquired.

'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 pa.s.sed, 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.

'The instant a sweet thought is born in your mind,' he continued, 'the heavenly stables send their starry messengers to harness it for use. A ray, perhaps, from mighty Sirius picks it out of your heart at birth.'

'Serious!' exclaimed Jimbo, as though the sun were listening.

'Sirius--another sun, that is, far bigger than our own--a perfect giant, yet so far away you hardly notice him.'

The boy clasped his dirty fingers and stared hard. The sun _was_ listening.

'Then what I _think_ is known--like that--all over the place?' he asked. He held himself very straight indeed.

'Everywhere,' replied Cousinenry gravely. 'The stars flash your thoughts over the whole universe. None are ever lost. Sooner or later they appear in visible shape. Some one, for instance, must have thought this flower long ago'--he stooped and picked a blue hepatica at their feet--'or it couldn't be growing here now.'

Jimbo accepted the statement with his usual gravity.

'Then I shall always think enormous and tremendous things--powerful locomotives, like that and--and----'

'The best is to think kind little sweet things about other people,'

suggested the other. 'You see the results quicker then.'

'Mais oui,' was the reply, 'je pourrai faire ca au meme temps, n'est- ce pas?'

'Parfaitemong,' agreed his big cousin.

'There's no room in her for inside sight,' observed Monkey as a portly dame rolled by into the darkness. 'You can't tell her front from her back.' It was one of the governesses.

'We'll get her into the cave and change all that,' her cousin said reprovingly. 'You must never judge by outside alone. Puddings should teach you that.'