But Lord, the infinite possibilities of self-deception – the difficulty of disentangling the countless strands of emotion and calling each by its proper name – of separating business from pleasure. At times, whatever he might say, he was surely lost in a cloud of unknowing; but at least it was a peaceful cloud at present and sailing through a milky sea towards a possible though unlikely ecstasy at an indefinite remove was, if not the fulness of life, then something like its shadow.
