Page 93 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

too remote, and she had not learned that they were desirable.
On the other hand, she had not known anything of absolute
want. Even the very poverty of her aunt, the Marchesa, had
nothing intolerable to a refined mind; it seemed in accord
with a great grief: it had the austerity of a sacrifice offered
to a noble ideal. Thus even the most legitimate touch of ma-
terialism was wanting in Mrs. Gould’s character. The dead
man of whom she thought with tenderness (because he was
Charley’s father) and with some impatience (because he had
been weak), must be put completely in the wrong. Nothing
else would do to keep their prosperity without a stain on its
only real, on its immaterial side!
Charles Gould, on his part, had been obliged to keep
the idea of wealth well to the fore; but he brought it for-
ward as a means, not as an end. Unless the mine was good
business it could not be touched. He had to insist on that
aspect of the enterprise. It was his lever to move men who
had capital. And Charles Gould believed in the mine. He
knew everything that could be known of it. His faith in the
mine was contagious, though it was not served by a great
eloquence; but business men are frequently as sanguine
and imaginative as lovers. They are affected by a personal-
ity much oftener than people would suppose; and Charles
Gould, in his unshaken assurance, was absolutely convinc-
ing. Besides, it was a matter of common knowledge to the
men to whom he addressed himself that mining in Costa-
guana was a game that could be made considably more than
worth the candle. The men of affairs knew that very well.
The real difficulty in touching it was elsewhere. Against that

Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard