Heart of Darkness - Robert Hampson, Joseph Conrad

I ventured to hint that the Company was run for profit.
“‘You forget, dear Charlie, that the labourer is worthy of his hire,’ she said, brightly. It’s queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own, and there has never been anything like it, and never can be. It is too beautiful altogether, and if they were to set it up it would go to pieces before the first sunset. Some confounded fact we men have been living contentedly with ever since the day of creation would start up and knock the whole thing over.

 

Charming *grimace*

 

So, the doctor was not a horror-tale gatekeeper at all. Or the Swedish captain.

 

I’ve seen the devil of violence, and the devil of greed, and the devil of hot desire; but, by all the stars! these were strong, lusty, red-eyed devils, that swayed and drove men—men, I tell you. But as I stood on this hillside, I foresaw that in the blinding sunshine of that land I would become acquainted with a flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly. How insidious he could be, too, I was only to find out several months later and a thousand miles farther.

 

That's no ominous at all...

 

Then a description of the working settlement... welcome to sanity-ville?

 

Points for setting the atmosphere from page one and the starting ramble.

 

His appearance was certainly that of a hairdresser’s dummy; but in the great demoralization of the land he kept up his appearance. That’s backbone. His starched collars and got-up shirt-fronts were achievements of character.

 

Sure. Not a desperate attempt at staying civilized at all.