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Conrad, Joseph, 1857-1924

"Chance"

And
this was awful. Just try to enter into the feelings of a man whose
imagination wakes up at the very moment he is about to enter the tomb . . . "
* * * * *
"You must not think," went on Marlow after a pause, "that on that morning
with Fyne I went consciously in my mind over all this, let us call it
information; no, better say, this fund of knowledge which I had, or
rather which existed, in me in regard to de Barral. Information is
something one goes out to seek and puts away when found as you might do a
piece of lead: ponderous, useful, unvibrating, dull. Whereas knowledge
comes to one, this sort of knowledge, a chance acquisition preserving in
its repose a fine resonant quality . . . But as such distinctions touch
upon the transcendental I shall spare you the pain of listening to them.
There are limits to my cruelty. No! I didn't reckon up carefully in my
mind all this I have been telling you. How could I have done so, with
Fyne right there in the room? He sat perfectly still, statuesque in
homely fashion, after having delivered himself of his effective assent:
"Yes.


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