It is all a matter of proportion.

There should have been a remedy for that sort of thing.

And yet there is no remedy.

Behind this minute instance of life's hazards Heyst sees the power of blind destiny.
Besides, Heyst in his fine detachment had lost the habit of asserting himself.

I don't mean the courage of self-assertion, either moral or physical, but the mere way of it, the trick of the thing, the readiness of mind and the turn of the hand that come without reflection and lead the man to excellence in life, in art, in crime, in virtue, and, for the matter of that, even in love.