The storm-wind of a strong passion had, all
at once for the first time, blown in upon the sheltered harbour in
which that placid life had been led.
And yet that storm-wind did not produce the same effect, as it would
have produced, and is seen to produce every day on the strong, wide-
spread canvas of some young navigator on the ocean of life, putting
out into the open waters at the time when such storms are frequent.
Every day we see such craft scudding with all sails spread before
the blast without attempt at reefing or tacking. Right ahead they
drive before the wind with no doubtful course. But it was not and
could not be so in the case of the Marchese Lamberto. The whole
habits of a life--the ways, notions, hopes, desires, ambitions, that
time had made into a part of the nature of the man; the passions,
which though calm and unviolent in their nature, had become strong,
not by forcible energy, but by the deep and unconscious sinking of
their roots into the depths of his character--all these things
opposed a resistance to the new and suddenly-loosed passion-wind,
such as that which the deep-rooted oak opposes to the tempest with
no result of conquering it, only with the result of causing its own
leaves and branches to be buffeted to and fro, torn, broken, and
wrecked.
Thus it was that the unhappy Marchese was violently driven to and
fro from hour to hour between the extremities of love and hate, till
his brain reeled in the terrible conflict; and alternate attraction
and repulsion bandied his soul backwards and forwards between them.
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