in angry fury when an impassable dam was thrown across their waters. So
any affection, however genial and gentle in its own nature, may become
an ungovernable, ferocious passion, by the intervention of fatal
obstacles in its course. In the case of Father Francesco, the sense of
guilt and degradation fell like a blight over all the past that had been
so ignorantly happy. He thought he had been living on manna, but found
it poison. Satan had been fooling him, leading him on blindfold, and
laughing at his simplicity, and now mocked at his captivity. And how
nearly had he been hurried by a sudden and overwhelming influence to the
very brink of disgrace! He felt himself shiver and grow cold to think of
it. A moment more and he had blasted that pure ear with forbidden words
of passion; and even now he remembered, with horror, the look of grave
and troubled surprise in those confiding eyes, that had always looked
up to him trustingly, as to God. A moment more and he had betrayed the
faith he taught her, shattered her trust in the holy ministry, and
perhaps imperilled her salvation. He breathed a sigh of relief when he
thought of it,--he had not betrayed himself, he had not fallen in her
esteem, he still stood on that sacred vantage-ground where his power
over her was so great, and where at least he possessed her confidence
and veneration. There was still time for recollection, for self-control,
for a vehement struggle which should set all right again: but, alas! how
shall a man struggle who finds his whole inner nature boiling in furious
rebellion against the dictates of his conscience,--self against self?

It is true, also, that no passions are deeper in their hold, more
pervading and more vital to the whole human being, than those that make
their first entrance through the higher nature, and, beginning with a
religious and poetic ideality, gradually work their way through the
whole fabric of the human existence.