Victorian Restraint: Rivets and Corsets

Marlow's: "What I really wanted was rivets, by heavens!  Rivets. To get on with the work. To stop the hole. Rivets I wanted....  Instead of rivets there came an invasion, and infliction, a visitation" (1512-1513).

Kurtz's: "...Mr. Kurtz lacked restraint in the gratification of his various lusts, that there was wanting [missing/lacking] missing in him -- some small need which when the pressing need arose could not be found under his magnificent eloquence.  ... I think [the wilderness] has whispered to him things about himself which he did not know, things of which he had no conception till he took counsel with this great solitude -- and the whisper had proved irresistibly fascinating. It echoed in him because he was hollow to the core."

The "Natives": "And I saw that something restraining, one of those human secrets that baffle probability, had come into play here" (when they were nearly starving) ... Restraint! What possible restraint? Was it superstition, disgust, patience, fear -- or some kind of primitive honor? ... Restraint! I would just as soon have expected restraint from a hyena prowling amongst the battlefield...but here it was" (1522-1523).