Good God, what did they all see in him? for I swear there was all
there was of him, inside and out; though they said he was a good
soldier. Yet, Leonora adored him with a passion that was like an
agony, and hated him with an agony that was as bitter as the sea.
How could he arouse anything like a sentiment, in anybody?
What did he even talk to them about--when they were under four
eyes? --Ah, well, suddenly, as if by a flash of inspiration, I know.
For all good soldiers are sentimentalists--all good soldiers of that
type. Their profession, for one thing, is full of the big words,
courage, loyalty, honour, constancy. And I have given a wrong
impression of Edward Ashburnham if I have made you think that
literally never in the course of our nine years of intimacy did he
discuss what he would have called "the graver things." Even
before his final outburst to me, at times, very late at night, say, he
has blurted out something that gave an insight into the sentimental
view of the cosmos that was his. He would say how much the
society of a good woman could do towards redeeming you, and he
would say that constancy was the finest of the virtues. He said it
very stiffly, of course, but still as if the statement admitted of no
doubt.
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