It was a worship of all the separate, mysterious, living souls he approached: “souls” of grass, trees, stones, animals, birds, fish; “souls” of planetary bodies and of the bodies of men and women; the “souls,” even, of all manner of inanimate little things; the “souls” of all those strange, chemical groupings that give a living identity to houses, towns, places, countrysides.⁠ ⁠…

“Am I inhuman in some appallingly incurable manner?” he thought. “Is the affection I have for human beings less important to me than the shadows of leaves and the flowing of waters?”