The eccentric (Sneller)

In the days before all the paths were made straight and all the rough edges smoothed off as affronts to group life, there was a chance for the unusual, the odd, or the eccentric to exist without anyone's feeling obliged to do something about it. The right of a man or woman to be different was unchallenged. The community thought, in fact, that those who broke the regular pattern of life improved things so far as food for thought and talk was concerned.

Anne Gertrude Sneller, A Vanished World