Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART FIRST: THE SILVER OF THE MINE 6. CHAPTER SIX (continued)

Charles Gould, on his part, had been obliged to keep the idea of
wealth well to the fore; but he brought it forward as a means,
not as an end. Unless the mine was good business it could not be
touched. He had to insist on that aspect of the enterprise. It
was his lever to move men who had capital. And Charles Gould
believed in the mine. He knew everything that could be known of
it. His faith in the mine was contagious, though it was not
served by a great eloquence; but business men are frequently as
sanguine and imaginative as lovers. They are affected by a
personality much oftener than people would suppose; and Charles
Gould, in his unshaken assurance, was absolutely convincing.
Besides, it was a matter of common knowledge to the men to whom
he addressed himself that mining in Costaguana was a game that
could be made considably more than worth the candle. The men of
affairs knew that very well. The real difficulty in touching it
was elsewhere. Against that there was an implication of calm and
implacable resolution in Charles Gould's very voice. Men of
affairs venture sometimes on acts that the common judgment of the
world would pronounce absurd; they make their decisions on
apparently impulsive and human grounds. "Very well," had said the
considerable personage to whom Charles Gould on his way out
through San Francisco had lucidly exposed his point of view. "Let
us suppose that the mining affairs of Sulaco are taken in hand.
There would then be in it: first, the house of Holroyd, which is
all right; then, Mr. Charles Gould, a citizen of Costaguana, who
is also all right; and, lastly, the Government of the Republic.
So far this resembles the first start of the Atacama nitrate
fields, where there was a financing house, a gentleman of the
name of Edwards, and--a Government; or, rather, two
Governments--two South American Governments. And you know what
came of it. War came of it; devastating and prolonged war came of
it, Mr. Gould. However, here we possess the advantage of having
only one South American Government hanging around for plunder out
of the deal. It is an advantage; but then there are degrees of
badness, and that Government is the Costaguana Government."