All the strength of his feelings was concentrated upon one point alone; and as their usual vent was closed, it was to be feared lest extreme tension should give rise to an explosion sooner or later.
I might with a word have loosened the screw of the steel vice that was crushing his brain; but that word I would not speak.
Yet I was not an ill-natured fellow.

Why was I dumb at such a crisis?
Why so insensible to my uncle's interests?
"No, no," I repeated, "I shall not speak.

He would insist upon going; nothing on earth could stop him.

His imagination is a volcano, and to do that which other geologists have never done he would risk his life.

I will preserve silence.