Strona 574 z 896

Yes. Like the mariner in the old story, the winds and streams had

driven him within the influence of the Loadstone Rock, and it was

drawing him to itself, and he must go. Everything that arose

before his mind drifted him on, faster and faster, more and more

steadily, to the terrible attraction. His latent uneasiness had

been, that bad aims were being worked out in his own unhappy land

by bad instruments, and that he who could not fail to know that

he was better than they, was not there, trying to do something to

stay bloodshed, and assert the claims of mercy and humanity. With

this uneasiness half stifled, and half reproaching him, he had

been brought to the pointed comparison of himself with the brave

old gentleman in whom duty was so strong; upon that comparison

(injurious to himself) had instantly followed the sneers of

Monseigneur, which had stung him bitterly, and those of Stryver,

which above all were coarse and galling, for old reasons.