Again she felt a return of that utter despondency which had fallen upon her after Guido's death: but then she could indulge in it unmolested, and that was something of relief: now she was forced into exertion, that sort of exertion of all the most tiresome, because the least interesting...

a Benefice is said to be void by the Assecution of a second Benefice which is incompatible with the first

“I didn't know you were all up on xenoanatomy.” “I'm not.” Ressk set the blade above the uppermost hole in the skull and began to draw the saw back and forth. It caught on the desiccated flesh, bucked, then bit into bone.

[…] to be happy with their lot in life, content with things as they are, things that may once have been be-alls and absolute end-alls but that lost their intoxication after five years, put them on automatic pilot after ten and became a prison after fifteen.