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

on facts; and Charles Gould, whose imagination had beenpermanently affected by the one great fact of a silver mine,had no objection to this theory of the world’s future. If ithad seemed distasteful for a moment it was because thesudden statement of such vast eventualities dwarfed almostto nothingness the actual matter in hand. He and his plansand all the mineral wealth of the Occidental Province appearedsuddenly robbed of every vestige of magnitude. Thesensation was disagreeable; but Charles Gould was not dull.Already he felt that he was producing a favourable impression;the consciousness of that flattering fact helped him toa vague smile, which his big interlocutor took for a smile ofdiscreet and admiring assent. He smiled quietly, too; andimmediately Charles Gould, with that mental agility mankindwill display in defence of a cherished hope, reflectedthat the very apparent insignificance of his aim would helphim to success. His personality and his mine would be takenup because it was a matter of no great consequence, oneway or another, to a man who referred his action to such aprodigious destiny. And Charles Gould was not humiliatedby this consideration, because the thing remained as bigas ever for him. Nobody else’s vast conceptions of destinycould diminish the aspect of his desire for the redemptionof the San Tome mine. In comparison to the correctness ofhis aim, definite in space and absolutely attainable withina limited time, the other man appeared for an instant as adreamy idealist of no importance.The great man, massive and benignant, had been lookingat him thoughtfully; when he broke the short silence it