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The whole trend of my thought in matters of conduct is against whatever accentuates one's individual separation from the collective consciousness. It follows naturally from my fundamental creed that avoidable silences and secrecy are sins, just as abstinences are in themselves sins rather than virtues.
The line of argument holds good in all cases except when the misfortunes are predicted in a horoscope; for either the ills predicted are avoidable, in which case the horoscope is a useless piece of folly, or else the horoscope is the interpreter of destiny, in which case all the precautions in the world are of no avail.
When she went to church she prayed to the good Lord to deliver her and everybody else from envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness. She felt now that there might well be added to the Litany a fresh petition which should include British communities on the Continent in the list of avoidable evils. At that instant the piquant face and figure of Millicent Jaques rose before her mind's eye.
Rifles that have been thrown away or dropped when men were wounded or killed, bits of uniforms, bayonets everything is saved. Reclamation is the order of the day. There is waste enough in war that cannot be avoided; the British army sees to it that there is none that is avoidable. But it was not only that sort of wreckage, that sort of driftwood that was being carried back to be made over.
Science, which thinks to make belief in miracles impossible, is itself belief in miracles in the miracles best authenticated by history and by daily life. When men begin to understand things, when they begin to reflect and to plan, they divide the world into the hateful and the delightful, the avoidable and the attainable.
And so clearly linked are steam engines and railways in our minds that, in common language now, the latter implies the former. But indeed it is the result of accidental impediments, of avoidable difficulties that we travel to-day on rails. Railway travelling is at best a compromise.
My only comfort was that in his time of supreme need I could give him supreme kindness, and if death must come there would not be the additional laceration of avoidable cruelty inflicted; and Nature, with every possible aid that could add comfort to the suffering body, won the victory.
As the fighting ended and manoeuvring became the game, of course Mazarin came uppermost, Mazarin, that super-Italian, finessing and fascinating, so deadly sweet, l'homme plus agréable du monde, as Madame de Motteville and Bussy-Rabutin call him, flattering that he might win, avaricious that he might be magnificent, winning kings by jewelry and princesses by lapdogs, too cowardly for any avoidable collision, too cool and economical in his hatred to waste an antagonist by killing him, but always luring and cajoling him into an unwilling tool, too serenely careless of popular emotion even to hate the mob of Paris, any more than a surgeon hates his own lancet when it cuts him; he only changes his grasp and holds it more cautiously.
Disease, hunger, deformity, and death still hound our babes, and most of that hounding is avoidable. We must and shall revolt against the evil lot, which preventible ignorance, ill health, and poverty bring on hundreds of thousands of children. It is time we had more pride. What right have we to the word "civilised" till we give mothers and children a proper chance?
But you are no doubt aware that the hotel makes what are apparently very excellent and complete arrangements for such things. I am sure Lady Merton would be sorry to give you avoidable trouble. However, we shall see you to-morrow, and shall of course be very glad of your counsels. "Yours faithfully, Anderson's fair skin flushed scarlet as he read this letter.
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