Even WITH it, in that absurd view, he would have been good enough.

Such was the laxity, in the Ververs, of the romantic spirit.

They didn't, indeed, poor dears, know what, in that line--the line of futility--the real thing meant.

HE did-- having seen it, having tried it, having taken its measure.

This was a memory in fact simply to screen out--much as, just in front of him while he walked, the iron shutter of a shop, closing early to the stale summer day, rattled down at the turn of some crank.