Each thinks in his own way, but
knows what the other is thinking. We fight mute battles, don't you see,
and, our thoughts, though we don't express them, are perceptible to one
another, and come out from our eyes, or pass out from us somehow, and
meet, and fight, and strike, and wound."
Of course Clive's confidant saw how sore and unhappy the poor fellow was,
and commiserated his fatal but natural condition. The little ills of life
are the hardest to bear, as we all very well know. What would the
possession of a hundred thousand a year, or fame, and the applause of
one's countrymen, or the loveliest and best-beloved woman,--of any glory,
and happiness, or good-fortune avail to a gentleman, for instance, who
was allowed to enjoy them only with the condition of wearing a shoe with
a couple of nails or sharp pebbles inside it? All fame and happiness
would disappear, and plunge down that shoe. All life would rankle round
those little nails. I strove, by such philosophic sedatives as confidants
are wont to apply on these occasions, to soothe my poor friend's anger
and pain; and I dare say the little nails hurt the patient just as much
as before.
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