“ One can't live with one's finger everlastingly on one's pulse. ”
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1899). copy citation
| Author | Joseph Conrad |
|---|---|
| Source | Heart of Darkness |
| Topic | living pulse |
| Date | 1899 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/219/219-h/219-h.htm |
Context
“I looked at them with a swift quickening of interest—not because it occurred to me I might be eaten by them before very long, though I own to you that just then I perceived—in a new light, as it were—how unwholesome the pilgrims looked, and I hoped, yes, I positively hoped, that my aspect was not so—what shall I say?—so—unappetizing: a touch of fantastic vanity which fitted well with the dream-sensation that pervaded all my days at that time. Perhaps I had a little fever, too. One can't live with one's finger everlastingly on one's pulse. I had often 'a little fever,' or a little touch of other things—the playful paw-strokes of the wilderness, the preliminary trifling before the more serious onslaught which came in due course. Yes; I looked at them as you would on any human being, with a curiosity of their impulses, motives, capacities, weaknesses, when brought to the test of an inexorable physical necessity.”
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