And though our foreign foes desire
our fall, the seed of THEIR decay is not yet in us!"
XXI.
Gherardi sat for two or three minutes in absolute silence. Only the
twitching of his eyelids and a slight throbbing in the muscles of
his throat showed with what difficulty he suppressed his rising
fury. But his astute and crafty powers of reasoning taught him that
it would be worse than ridiculous to give way to anger in the
presence of this cool, determined man, who, though he spoke with a
passion which from its very force seemed almost to sound like "the
mighty wind" which accompanied the cloven tongues of fire at the
first Pentecost, still maintained his personal calm,--that immovable
calmness which is always the result of strong inward conviction. A
dangerous man!--yes, there was no doubt of that! He was one of those
concerning whom Emerson wrote, "let the world beware when a Thinker
comes into it." Aubrey Leigh was a thinker,--and more than that, he
was a doer. He was of the strong heroic type of genius that turns
its dreams into facts, its thoughts into deeds. He did not talk, in
common with so many men, of what they considered OUGHT to be done,
without exerting themselves to DO it;--he was sincerely in earnest,
and cared nothing for any personal loss or inconvenience he might
suffer from carrying out his intentions.
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