Status Updates From Daniel Deronda

...but--heaven help us all!--we are often unable to act on our certainties; our objection to a contrary issue (were it possible) is so strong that it rises like a spectral illusion between us and our certainty; we are rationally sure that the blind-worm cannot bite us mortally, but it would be so intolerable to be bitten, and the creature has a biting look--we decline to handle it.

And thinking of them in these moments, one is tempted to that futile sort of wishing--if only things could have been a little otherwise then, so as to have been greatly otherwise after!

Who supposes that it is an impossible contradiction to be superstitious and rationalizing at the same time?