"Do they let them burn--just because they know fire for a dangerous thing ?" "Rescue them for what?
More fires?
It's a question whether it's very sane, or so very humane, either, to rescue a man from one fire just to have him on hand for another." "I don't think I ever in my life heard anything more farfetched," pronounced Katie.

"How do you know there'll be another ?" "Because there are people for whom there's nothing else.

If you can't offer a safe place, why rescue at all?
Though it's true," he laughed, "that I hadn't the courage of my convictions in the matter.

After that look--oh I haven't been able to make it live--burn--as it did--she passed on the Island, the guard evidently thinking she was with some people who had just got out of an automobile and gone on for a walk.

And suddenly I was corrupted, driven by that impulse for saving life, that beautiful passion for keeping things alive to suffer which is so humorously grounded in the human race." He stopped with a little laugh.