Quotation from: Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard

Written by: Joseph Conrad

"I was speaking of a man of that sort," said Decoud, curtly. "The heroes
of the world have been feared and admired. What more could he want?"

Decoud had often felt his familiar habit of ironic thought fall
shattered against Antonia's gravity. She irritated him as if she, too,
had suffered from that inexplicable feminine obtuseness which stands
so often between a man and a woman of the more ordinary sort. But he
overcame his vexation at once. He was very far from thinking Antonia
ordinary, whatever verdict his scepticism might have pronounced upon
himself. With a touch of penetrating tenderness in his voice he assured
her that his only aspiration was to a felicity so high that it seemed
almost unrealizable on this earth.