There is something in
this Italian mode of viewing human events and human conduct
curiously analogous to that conception of mortal destinies on which
the pathos of the old Greek tragedy mainly rests.
How cruel was the fate which had thus compelled the young man to
perceive that the life of this girl and his own welfare were
incompatible!
How dreadful the pitiless working of the great, blind, automatic,
destiny-machine!
To raise a murderous hand against the life of a sleeping girl--how
dreadful! How great, therefore, must have been the suffering which
impelled a man to do so!
He had evidently been driven to desperation by the prospect of the
utter and tremendous ruin that threatened him; and "desperation;"
the absence of all hope, is recognised, both by the popular mind of
Italy and by its theoretic theology, as a sufficient cause for any
course of action. It is especially taught by Roman Catholic theology
that it is, above all things, wicked so to act towards a man as to
drive him to desperation; and the popular ethics invariably visit
with deeper reprobation any cause of conduct which had tempted
another man to make himself guilty of a violent crime than it does
the criminal himself.
Thus, lawyer and law-abiding man as he was, with all the habits of a
long life between him and the possibility of his raising his own
band against the life of any man, Signor Fortini, as he mused on the
tragedy which had fallen out, felt more of compassion for the
Marchese Ludovico, and more of anger against the folly of his uncle.
Pages:
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463