Passage from "Of Human Bondage"

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"He's very enthusiastic," said Winks.

Enthusiasm was ill-bred. Enthusiasm was ungentlemanly.
They thought of the Salvation Army with its braying trumpets and its drums.
Enthusiasm meant change. They had gooseflesh when they thought of all the
pleasant old habits which stood in immiment danger.
They hardly dared to look forward to the future.

The Shadow-Line

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"Why was I not more surprised? Why? Here I was, invested with the command in the twinkling of an eye, not in the common course of human affairs, but more if by enchantment.

I ought to have been lost in astonishment. But I wasn't. I was very much like people in fairy tales. Nothing ever astonishes them.

When a fully appointed gala coach is produced out of a pumpkin to take her to a ball Cinderella does not exclaim. She gets in quietly and drives away to her high fortune."

"Human nature is, I fear, not very nice right through."

Joseph Conrad, The Shadow-Line (1916)