didn't want it. In addition they are devoid of decency. I mean
masculine decency. Cautiousness too is foreign to them--the heavy
reasonable cautiousness which is our glory. And if they had it they
would make of it a thing of passion, so that its own mother--I mean the
mother of cautiousness--wouldn't recognize it. Prudence with them is a
matter of thrill like the rest of sublunary contrivances. "Sensation at
any cost," is their secret device. All the virtues are not enough for
them; they want also all the crimes for their own. And why? Because in
such completeness there is power--the kind of thrill they love most . . .
"

"Do you expect me to agree to all this?" I interrupted.

"No, it isn't necessary," said Marlow, feeling the check to his eloquence
but with a great effort at amiability. "You need not even understand it.
I continue: with such disposition what prevents women--to use the phrase
an old boatswain of my acquaintance applied descriptively to his
captain--what prevents them from "coming on deck and playing hell with
the ship" generally, is that something in them precise and mysterious,
acting both as restraint and as inspiration; their femininity in short
which they think they can get rid of by trying hard, but can't, and never
will. Therefore we may conclude that, for all their enterprises, the
world is and remains safe enough. Feeling, in my character of a lover of
peace, soothed by that conclusion I prepared myself to enjoy a fine day.

And it was a fine day; a delicious day, with the horror of the Infinite
veiled by the splendid tent of blue; a day innocently bright like a child
with a washed face, fresh like an innocent young girl, suave in welcoming
one's respects like--like a Roman prelate. I love such days. They are
perfection for remaining indoors. And I enjoyed it temperamentally in a