QUOTE : Ian...paused for a moment on the threshold and stared, overcome by a sudden sense of confronting, not the men and women who were his friends, but a gathering of souls. How strange we are to one another, he thought. Each soul was encased in flesh, bound by an envelope of skin, turned inward, immersed in silence. The soul was light, or flame--its heat small, ephemeral, easily extinguished. Ian stared and felt afraid: yet felt, in that instant, an uncanny happiness. He saw himself so brotherly, so deeply kindred to them all--these souls, these separate beings, whom he did not know.