HMS Surprise (Aubrey & Maturin, #3)

by Patrick O'Brian

Then again, he loves to make war – no man more eager in the article of battle; but afterwards it is as though he did not feel that war consisted of killing your opponents. There is a contradiction here.’

Consent unreasonably withheld may justifiably be compelled.

Already I am beginning to murder time, like an ardent boy: such an ugly crime.

I will not lie to thee. There are bracelets for every degree of wealth.’

and strong affection supplies what intellect don’t

‘This question of money preoccupies your mind. Mine, too, at times: how pleasant it would be, to be able to offer one’s friend a rope of pearls! And then again, such deeply stupid men are able to come by wealth, often by no exertion, by no handling or even possession of merchandise, but merely by writing figures in a book.

‘I had so looked forward to getting my packet off to England. And I am sure you would have liked to do the same. However, salt water washes away disappointment as well as other things.

This life, with its rigid pattern punctuated by the sharp imperative sound of bells, seemed to take on something of the nature of eternity as they slanted down towards the line, crossing it in ninety-one degrees of latitude east of Greenwich. The higher ceremonies of divisions, of mustering by the open list, church, the Articles of War, marked the due order of time rather than its passage; and before they had been repeated twice most of the frigate’s people felt both past and future blur, dwindling almost into insignificance: an impression all the stronger since the Surprise was once more in a lonely sea, two thousand miles of dark blue water with never an island to break its perfect round: not the faintest smell of land even on the strongest breeze – the ship was a world self-contained, swimming between two perpetually-renewed horizons. Stronger still, because in these waters there was no eager impatience to see over the eastward rim: they sailed with no relation to an enemy, nor to any potential prize. The Dutch were bottled up; the French had disappeared; the Portuguese were friends.

It occurred to him that in all probability Canning had not the least notion of having cut him out long ago – oh so long ago: in another world.

but delirium had unlocked Stephen’s secret mind

He, too, was oppressed by a feeling that this great happiness of travelling month after month towards a splendid end was soon to be broken: a sense not indeed of impending disaster but rather of some uneasiness that he could not well define.