Accustomed as
he was always, to submit the whole daily course of his life to the
ruling of a Higher Power, he was framed and braced as temperately
for adversity as for joy,--and nothing seemed to him either
fortunate or disastrous except as concerned the attitude in which
the soul received the announcement of God's will. To resent
affliction was, in his opinion, sinful; to accept it reverently and
humbly as a means of grace, and endeavour to make sweetness out of
the seeming bitterness of the divine dispensation, appeared to him
the only right and natural way of duty,--hence his clear simplicity
of thought, his patience, plain faith, and purity of aim. And even
now, perplexed and pained as he was, much more for the sorrow which
had befallen his brother-in-law, than for any trouble likely to
occur personally to himself, he was still able to disentangle his
thoughts from all earthly cares--to lift up his heart, unsullied by
complaint, to the Ruler of all destinies--and to resign himself with
that Christian philosophy, which when truly practised, is so much
more powerful than all the splendid stoicism of the heroic pagans,
to those
"Glorious God-influences,
Which we, unseeing, feel and grope for blindly,
Like children in the dark, knowing that Love is near!"
Meanwhile Prince Pietro, moved by conflicting sentiments and
forebodings which he was unable to explain to himself, and only
strongly conscious of the desire to be avenged on his daughter's
cowardly assailant, whoever it might be, muffled himself in a well-
worn "Almaviva" cloak, his favourite out-door garment, pulled his
hat down over his eyes, and so, looking like a fierce old brigand of
the mountains, went out, not quite knowing why he went, but partly
impelled by a sense of curiosity.
Pages:
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
691
692
693
694
695
696
697
698
699
700
701
702
703