If he has been
born to worldly state as well as to a great inheritance, he
extends the desire of accumulation to the fortunes of his
relations and descendants, and shows a laudable anxiety that they
should possess all that he can get for them, provided it is quite
impossible that he should get it for himself. The powers of the
world have been to a great extent built up on this principle, and
it is a maxim in many a great family that there is no economy like
enriching one's relatives to the thud and fourth generation.
The struggle in Montevarchi's mind was so insignificant and lasted
so short a time, that it might be disregarded altogether, were it
not almost universally true that the human mind hesitates at the
moment of committing a crime. That moment of hesitation has
prevented millions of frightful deeds, and has betrayed thousands
of carefully plotted conspiracies whose success seemed assured,
and it is amazing to think what an influence has been exerted upon
the destinies of the human race by the instinctive fear of
crossing the narrow boundary between right and wrong. The time
occupied in such reflection is often only infinitesimal. It has
been called the psychological moment, and if the definition means
that it is the instant during which the soul suggests, it is a
true one.
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