“A man who begins to think his virtue shabby is a man who cannot afford
to pay his tailor—the priest.”
“Never confess to yourself any cause for shame, or you will soon find
your feet in the mire.”
“Men may regret; only women and fools repent.”
“Consciousness is life; therefore a man ought to suffer himself to be
conscious only of pleasant things.”
And my Lord of Gore was having a wider consciousness forced upon him in
the narrow world of that ruined house. And where were the studied
pleasantries of consciousness? A fine gentleman feeding on salt beef and
onions, scraping his own fire together, and living in devout horror of a
prosaic thing called death. So much so that he was possessed by a
species of “morsomania” grim enough to prevent him seeing the cynically
comic side of his own condition.