Nostromo - A Tale of the Seaboard.pdf - Planet eBook

there was an implication of calm and implacable resolutionin Charles Gould’s very voice. Men of affairs venturesometimes on acts that the common judgment of the worldwould pronounce absurd; they make their decisions on apparentlyimpulsive and human grounds. ‘Very well,’ hadsaid the considerable personage to whom Charles Gouldon his way out through San Francisco had lucidly exposedhis point of view. ‘Let us suppose that the mining affairs ofSulaco are taken in hand. There would then be in it: first,the house of Holroyd, which is all right; then, Mr. CharlesGould, a citizen of Costaguana, who is also all right; and,lastly, the Government of the Republic. So far this resemblesthe first start of the Atacama nitrate fields, where therewas a financing house, a gentleman of the name of Edwards,and—a Government; or, rather, two Governments—twoSouth American Governments. And you know what cameof it. War came of it; devastating and prolonged war cameof it, Mr. Gould. However, here we possess the advantageof having only one South American Government hangingaround for plunder out of the deal. It is an advantage; butthen there are degrees of badness, and that Government isthe Costaguana Government.’Thus spoke the considerable personage, the millionaireendower of churches on a scale befitting the greatness of hisnative land—the same to whom the doctors used the languageof horrid and veiled menaces. He was a big-limbed,deliberate man, whose quiet burliness lent to an ample silkfacedfrock-coat a superfine dignity. His hair was iron grey,his eyebrows were still black, and his massive profile was