From gaps between the tall leaning
houses a glimpse of the sea, silvered by the dying moonlight, flashed
now and again; and in the silence of the night the low ripple of small
waves against the breakwater could be distinctly heard. A sense of holy
calm impressed him as he paused a moment; and the words of an old
monkish verse came back to him from some far-off depth of memory:
Lord Christ, I would my soul were clear as air,
With only Thy pure radiance falling through!
He caught his breath hard--there was a smarting sense as of tears in
his eyes.
"So proudly throned, and so unloved!" he muttered. "Yet,--has not the
misprisal and miscomprehension been merited? Whose is the blame? Not
with the People, who, despite the prophet's warning, 'still put their
trust in princes'--but with the falsity and hollowness of the system!
Sovereignty is like an old ship stuck fast in the docks, and unfit for
sailing the wide seas--crusted with barnacles of custom and prejudice,
--and in every gale of wind pulling and straining at a rusty chain
anchor. But the spirit of Change is in the world; a hurrying movement
that has wings of fire, and might possibly be called Revolution! It is
better that the torch should be lighted from the Throne than from the
slums!"
He went on his way quickly,--till reaching the outer wall of the
citadel, he was challenged by a sentinel, to whom he gave the password
in a low tone.
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