It is the irritation of getting tickets, packing, finding trains, lying in bouncing berths, washing without water, digging out passports, and fighting through customs.
And that the pastor’s sermons, however dull they might seem at the time of taking, yet had a voodooistic power which ‘did a fellow good– kept him in touch with Higher Things.
Upon this theology he rarely pondered. The kernel of his practical religion was that it was respectable, and beneficial to one’s business, to be seen going to services; that the church kept the Worst Elements from being still worse.
Fine, large, meaningless, general terms like romance and business can always be related. They take the place of thinking, and are highly useful to optimists and lecturers.
The cocktail filled him with a whirling exhilaration behind which he was aware of devastating desires-to rush places in fast motors, to kiss girls, to sing, to be witty. … He perceived that he had gifts of profligacy which had been neglected. -chapter 8
There are two insults which no human being will endure: The assertion that he hasn’t a sense of humor, and the doubly impertinent assertion that he has never known trouble.
