Sanguine by nature, Troy had a power of eluding
grief by simply adjourning it. He could put off the
consideration of any particular spectre till the matter
had become old and softened by time. The planting
of flowers on Fanny's grave had been perhaps but a
species of elusion of the primary grief, and now it was
as if his intention had been known and circumvented.
Almost for the first time in his life, Troy, as he stood
by this dismantled grave, wished himself another man.
lt is seldom that a person with much animal spirit does
not feel that the fact of his life being his own is the one
qualification which singles it out as a more hopeful life
than that of others who may actually resemble him in
every particular. Troy had felt, in his transient way,
hundreds of times, that he could not envy other people
their condition, because the possession of that condition
would have necessitated a different personality, when he
desired no other than his own. He had not minded
the peculiarities of his birth, the vicissitudes of his life,
the meteorlike uncertainty of all that related to him,
because these appertained to the hero of his story,
without whom there would have been no story at all for
him; and it seemed to be only in the nature of things
that matters would right themselves at some proper date
and wind up well.
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