The physical loneliness of Mrs Gould signifies much more, set as it is in the discussion of the "inhuman," "polished" world of the material interests, where all passions (political and romantic) have been forced into secrecy, and the only surviving ideal is that of the lonely subjective self. But we readers must also receive the loneliness of our world "without flinching," with our faces "set and rigid," for in the merciliess logic of Nostromo it is, to use Monygham's words, "the only remedy."