This was the time when everything that happened, everything he
heard, casual words, unrelated phrases, seemed a provocation or an
encouragement, confirmed him in his resolution. And indeed to be busy
with material affairs is the best preservative against reflection, fears,
doubts--all these things which stand in the way of achievement. I
suppose a fellow proposing to cut his throat would experience a sort of
relief while occupied in stropping his razor carefully.
And Anthony was extremely careful in preparing for himself and for the
luckless Flora, an impossible existence. He went about it with no more
tremors than if he had been stuffed with rags or made of iron instead of
flesh and blood. An existence, mind you, which, on shore, in the thick
of mankind, of varied interests, of distractions, of infinite
opportunities to preserve your distance from each other, is hardly
conceivable; but on board ship, at sea, _en tete-a-tete_ for days and
weeks and months together, could mean nothing but mental torture, an
exquisite absurdity of torment. He was a simple soul.
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