Quotation from: The Secret Agent

Written by: Joseph Conrad


That was the form of doubt he feared most. Impervious to fear! Often
while walking abroad, when he happened also to come out of himself, he
had such moments of dreadful and sane mistrust of mankind. What if
nothing could move them? Such moments come to all men whose ambition
aims at a direct grasp upon humanity--to artists, politicians, thinkers,
reformers, or saints. A despicable emotional state this, against which
solitude fortifies a superior character; and with severe exultation the
Professor thought of the refuge of his room, with its padlocked cupboard,
lost in a wilderness of poor houses, the hermitage of the perfect
anarchist. In order to reach sooner the point where he could take his
omnibus, he turned brusquely out of the populous street into a narrow and
dusky alley paved with flagstones. On one side the low brick houses had
in their dusty windows the sightless, moribund look of incurable
decay--empty shells awaiting demolition. From the other side life had
not departed wholly as yet. Facing the only gas-lamp yawned the cavern
of a second-hand furniture dealer, where, deep in the gloom of a sort of
narrow avenue winding through a bizarre forest of wardrobes, with an
undergrowth tangle of table legs, a tall pier-glass glimmered like a pool
of water in a wood. An unhappy, homeless couch, accompanied by two
unrelated chairs, stood in the open. The only human being making use of
the alley besides the Professor, coming stalwart and erect from the
opposite direction, checked his swinging pace suddenly.

PREVIOUS GROUP HOME SITE HOME NEXT
Old Dominion University CS Dept
Designed by Joan A. Smith for the CRATE project
Created: 2007-2-22T12:35:29Z
Part of the CratePreservation Project
Change Tag: ~~ 0 ~~
Part of a series of experiments in web preservation under the direction of Michael L. Nelson, Ph.D.