There, in its centre, a sepulchral lamp
Burns the slow flame, eternal--but unseen;
Which not the darkness of despair can damp,
Though vain its ray as it had never been."
He finds Medora dead, and -
"his mother's softness crept
To those wild eyes, which like an infant's wept."
If his crimes and love could be weighed in a celestial balance, weight
being apportioned to the rarity and value of the love, which would
descend?
The points indicated in Conrad's character are not many, but they are
sufficient for its delineation, and it is a moral character. We must,
of course, get rid of the notion that the relative magnitude of the
virtues and vices according to the priest or society is authentic. A
reversion to the natural or divine scale has been almost the sole duty
preached to us by every prophet. If we could incorporate Conrad with
ourselves we should find that the greater part of what is worst in us
would be neutralised. The sins of which we are ashamed, the dirty,
despicable sins, Conrad could not have committed; and in these latter
days they are perhaps the most injurious.
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