I was a peaceful sedentary man, a lover of a quiet life, with no appetite for perils and commotions. But I was beginning to realise that I was very obstinate.
Fortunately for mankind the brain in a life of action turns more to the matter in hand than to conjuring up the chances of the future.
I believe that every man has in his soul a passion for treasure-hunting, which will often drive a coward into prodigies of valour.
It was foreordained that I should go alone to Umvelos’, and in the promptings of my own infallible heart I believed I saw the workings of Omnipotence. Such is our moral arrogance, and yet without such a belief I think that mankind would have ever been content to bide sluggishly at home.
Civilisation needs more than the law to hold it together. You see, all mankind are not equally willing to accept as divine justice what is called human law.
You may hear people say that submarines have done away with the battleship, and that aircraft have annulled the mastery of the sea. That is what our pessimists say. But do you imagine that the clumsy submarine or the fragile aeroplane is really the last word of science?
You see only the productions of second-rate folk who are in a hurry to get wealth and fame. The true knowledge, the deadly knowledge, is still kept secret. But, believe me, my friend, it is there.
If those extra-social brains are so potent, why after all do they effect so little? A dull police-officer, with the machine behind him, can afford to laugh at most experiments in anarchy.
Pessimism is the one ism which kills the soul.
The secret belongs only to the Maker of good and faithful dogs.
Capital, he said, had no conscience and no fatherland.
Here were we wretched creatures of men making for each other’s throats, and outraging the good earth which God had made so fair a habitation.
The more doubtful the political outlook the fiercer will be the dogmas which men create and contend for.
We must all be fighters and strugglers, Lewie, and it is better to wear out than to rust out. It is bad to let choice things become easily familiar; for, you know, familiarity is apt to beget a proverbial offspring.” The.
Our ignorance of the future has been wisely ordained of Heaven. For unless man were to be like God and know everything, it is better that he should know nothing. If he knows one fact only, instead of profiting by it he will assuredly land in the soup.
I was not a murderer, but I had become an unholy liar, a shameless impostor, and a highwayman with a marked taste for expensive motor-cars.
Pardon,′ he said, ‘I’m a bit rattled tonight. You see, I happen at this moment to be dead.
When a man comes out of great danger, he is apt to be a little deaf to the call of duty.
A little thing, lasting only a second, and the odds were a thousand to one that I might have had my eyes on my cards at the time and missed it. But I didn’t, and, in a flash, the air seemed to clear. Some shadow lifted from my brain, and I was looking at the three men with full and absolute recognition.
Only by the possession of a sense of humour am I saved from insignificance.” To.
There was more in those eyes than any common triumph. They had been hooded like a bird of prey, and now they flamed with a hawk’s pride. A white fanatic heat burned in them, and I realized for the first time the terrible thing I had been up against. This man was more than a spy; in his foul way he had been a patriot.