None of George's theories had greatly taxed his imagination. He had
not been in any habit of fancying himself in this or that
situation--and when he did, it was always in some pleasant one of
victory or recognition. Possible conditions of humanity other than
pleasant, he had been content to regard from the outside, and come
to logical conclusions concerning, without, as a German would say,
thinking himself into them at all; and it would have been to do the
very idea of George Bascombe a wrong to imagine him entangled in any
such net of glowing wire as a crime against society! Therefore,
although for most questions George had always an answer ready, for
this he had none at hand, and required a moment, and but a moment,
to think.
"I would say to myself," he replied, "'What is done, is done, and is
beyond my power to alter or help.' And so I would be a man and bear
it--not a weakling, and let it crush me. No, by Jove! it shouldn't
crush ME!"
"Ah, but you haven't tried the weight of it, George!" returned
Leopold.
"God forbid!" said George.
"God forbid! indeed," rejoined Leopold; "but there 'tis done for all
his forbidding!"
"What's done is done, God or devil, and must be borne, I say," said
Bascombe, stretching out his legs.
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