The symbolism of an act varies much, and what may be
mere sport to one is sin in another. The Major's easy manners and
very free courtesy were innocent so far as he was concerned; but when
his rigid, religious companion in the hackney coach felt them sweet,
and was better pleased with them than she had ever been with her
husband's caresses, she sinned, and she knew that she sinned.
What curiously composite creatures we are! Zachariah for a moment
was half pleased, for she had now clearly wronged him. The next
moment, however, he was wretched. He took up the teapot; it was
empty; the tea-caddy was locked up. It was a mere trifle, but, as he
said to himself, the merest trifles are important if they are
significant. He brooded, therefore, over the empty teapot and locked
tea-caddy for fully five minutes. She had not only gone without him,
but had forgotten him. At the end of the five minutes teapot and
tea-caddy had swollen to enormous dimensions and had become the basis
of large generalisations. "I would rather," he exclaimed, "be
condemned to be led out and hung if I knew one human soul would love
me for a week beforehand and honour me afterwards, than live half a
century and be nothing to any living creature.
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