いくつかの質問と訳の添削をお願い致します。
John Galsworthyという作家の『ＴHE CHOICE』という物語を読んでいるのですが、 訳の添削と質問の個所の回答をお願い致します。
*He was so entirely fixed and certain that he was "going in the river" before he went "in the 'house," that one hesitated to suggest that the time was at hand when he should cease to expose himself all day and every day. He had evidently pondered long and with a certain deep philosophy on this particular subject, and fortified himself by hearsay.
（ 'house＝poorhouse. 「救貧院」：本の注釈より）
(1) この英文はso～that構文ですか？
（so） entirely fixed and certain ～（that） one hesitated to suggest ～
(2) the riverという単語はこの物語で初めて出てきたのですが、
he was "going in the river"というのは、彼が川の中に入ることになっているという
未来を表しているのでしょうか？（意味が？ですが・・・）
(3) fortified himself by hearsay
うわさによって精神を強化する、ですか？
どういう意味になるでしょうか？
＜訳＞
彼は救貧院に行く前に川に入ることをとても完全に固執して確信していたので、人は彼が毎日一日中自分自身をさらけることをしなくなるべきだという時が近い将来であるということを提案するのを躊躇していました。彼は明らかに長い間、なんらかの深い哲学と共にこの特別な主題を熟考し、うわさによって精神を強化しました。
よろしくお願い致します。
前文です。
but the one remarkable feature of his perpetual illness was that he was always "better" than he had been. We could not at times help thinking that this continual crescendo of good health should have gradually raised him to a pinnacle of paramount robustness; and it was with a certain disappointment, in the face of his assurances, that we watched him getting, on the contrary, slowly stiffer and feebler, and noted the sure increase of the egg-like deposits, which he would proudly have us remark, about his wrists and fingers.
