Strong and self-relying as was his mind by nature, he yet
lacked all that strength of soul which had sustained Ralph even when
there seemed no possible escape from the danger which threatened his
life. But Guy Rivers was not capable of receiving light or warmth from
the simple aspects of nature. His soul, indurated by crime, was as
insusceptible to the soothing influence of such aspects, as the cold
rocky cavern where he had harbored, was impenetrable to the noonday
blaze. The sun-glance through the barred lattice, suddenly stealing,
like a friendly messenger, with a sweet and mellow smile upon his lips,
was nailed as an angelic visiter, by the enthusiastic nature of the one,
without guile in his own heart. Rivers would have regarded such a
visiter as an intruder; the smile in his eyes would have been a sneer,
and he would have turned away from it in disgust. The mind of the strong
man is the medium through which the eyes see, and from which life takes
all its color. The heart is the prismatic conductor, through which the
affections show; and that which is seared, or steeled, or
ossified--perverted utterly from its original make--can exhibit no
rainbows--no arches of a sweet promise, linking the gloomy earth with
the bright and the beautiful and the eternal heavens.
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