The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad: certainly as pious as anything likely to come from such a source.
"I wish to goodness," he growled huskily, "I had never seen
Greenwich Park or anything belonging to it."
The veiled sound filled the small room with its moderate volume,
well adapted to the modest nature of the wish. The waves of air of
the proper length, propagated in accordance with correct
mathematical formulas, flowed around all the inanimate things in
the room, lapped against Mrs Verloc's head as if it had been a head
of stone. And incredible as it may appear, the eyes of Mrs Verloc
seemed to grow still larger. The audible wish of Mr Verloc's
overflowing heart flowed into an empty place in his wife's memory.
 The Secret Agent |