And her captain doesn't know now whether to turn her head north or
south.
LADY CICELY. Why not north for England?
BRASSBOUND. Why not south for the Pole?
LADY CICELY. But you must do something with yourself.
BRASSBOUND (settling himself with his fists and elbows weightily
on the table and looking straight and powerfully at her). Look
you: when you and I first met, I was a man with a purpose. I stood
alone: I saddled no friend, woman or man, with that purpose,
because it was against law, against religion, against my own
credit and safety. But I believed in it; and I stood alone for it,
as a man should stand for his belief, against law and religion as
much as against wickedness and selfishness. Whatever I may be, I
am none of your fairweather sailors that'll do nothing for their
creed but go to Heaven for it. I was ready to go to hell for mine.
Perhaps you don't understand that.
LADY CICELY. Oh bless you, yes. It's so very like a certain sort
of man.
BRASSBOUND. I daresay but I've not met many of that sort. Anyhow,
that was what I was like. I don't say I was happy in it; but I
wasn't unhappy, because I wasn't drifting. I was steering a course
and had work in hand. Give a man health and a course to steer; and
he'll never stop to trouble about whether he's happy or not.
LADY CICELY. Sometimes he won't even stop to trouble about whether
other people are happy or not.
BRASBIiOUND. I don't deny that: nothing makes a man so selfish as
work.
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