Lucy

“You could have knocked the Paladin down with a feather. He seemed to actually turn pale. He worked his lips a moment without getting anything out; then it came:

'I didn’t know that, nor the half of it; how could I? I’ve been an idiot. I see it now—I’ve been an idiot. I met them this morning, and sung out hello to them just as I would to anybody. I didn’t mean to be ill-mannered, but I didn’t know the half of this that you’ve been telling. I’ve been an ass. Yes, that is all there is to it—I’ve been an ass.'

Noel Rainguesson said, in a kind of weary way:

'Yes, that is likely enough; but I don’t see why you should seem surprised at it.'

'You don’t, don’t you? Well, why don’t you?'

'Because I don’t see any novelty about it. With some people it is a condition which is present all the time. Now you take a condition which is present all the time, and the results of that condition will be uniform; this uniformity of result will in time become monotonous; monotonousness, by the law of its being, is fatiguing. If you had manifested fatigue upon noticing that you had been an ass, that would have been logical, that would have been rational; whereas it seems to me that to manifest surprise was to be again an ass, because the condition of intellect that can enable a person to be surprised and stirred by inert monotonousness is a—”
― Mark Twain, Joan of Arc