'
'I couldn't do it,' said Reardon.
'Certainly you couldn't. You--well, you are a psychological
realist in the sphere of culture. You are impatient of vulgar
circumstances.'
'In a great measure because my life has been martyred by them.'
'And for that very same reason I delight in them,' cried Biffen.
'You are repelled by what has injured you; I am attracted by it.
This divergence is very interesting; but for that, we should have
resembled each other so closely. You know that by temper we are
rabid idealists, both of us.'
'I suppose so.'
'But let me go on. I want, among other things, to insist upon the
fateful power of trivial incidents. No one has yet dared to do
this seriously. It has often been done in farce, and that's why
farcical writing so often makes one melancholy. You know my stock
instances of the kind of thing I mean. There was poor Allen, who
lost the most valuable opportunity of his life because he hadn't
a clean shirt to put on; and Williamson, who would probably have
married that rich girl but for the grain of dust that got into
his eye, and made him unable to say or do anything at the
critical moment.
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