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Chance by Joseph Conrad
page 63 of 453 (13%)
late bard of civilization would be able to invent for the tormenting of
his dependants. Poets not being generally foresighted in practical
affairs, no vision of consequences would restrain him. Yes. The Fynes
were excellent people, but Mrs. Fyne wasn't the daughter of a domestic
tyrant for nothing. There were no limits to her revolt. But they were
excellent people. It was clear that they must have been extremely good
to that girl whose position in the world seemed somewhat difficult, with
her face of a victim, her obvious lack of resignation and the bizarre
status of orphan "to a certain extent."

Such were my thoughts, but in truth I soon ceased to trouble about all
these people. I found that my lamp had gone out leaving behind an awful
smell. I fled from it up the stairs and went to bed in the dark. My
slumbers--I suppose the one good in pedestrian exercise, confound it, is
that it helps our natural callousness--my slumbers were deep, dreamless
and refreshing.

My appetite at breakfast was not affected by my ignorance of the facts,
motives, events and conclusions. I think that to understand everything
is not good for the intellect. A well-stocked intelligence weakens the
impulse to action; an overstocked one leads gently to idiocy. But Mrs.
Fyne's individualist woman-doctrine, naively unscrupulous, flitted
through my mind. The salad of unprincipled notions she put into these
girl-friends' heads! Good innocent creature, worthy wife, excellent
mother (of the strict governess type), she was as guileless of
consequences as any determinist philosopher ever was.

As to honour--you know--it's a very fine medieval inheritance which women
never got hold of. It wasn't theirs. Since it may be laid as a general
principle that women always get what they want we must suppose they
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