Page:Glenarvon (Volume 2).djvu/152

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been torn aside—that courtesy, which none should ever suffer themselves to forget, had been broken through, and they had yielded too frequently to the sudden impulse of passion, ever to feel secure that the ensuing moment might not produce a scene of discord.

A calm, a deliberate tyrant, had vanquished Calantha; a violent one could not. When provoked, Lord Avondale was too severe; and when he saw her miserable and oppressed, it gave him more suffering than if he had himself been subdued. There are few spirits which cannot be overcome if dexterously attacked; but with the fierce and daring, force and violence will generally be found useless. It should be remembered that, like madness, these disturbed characters see not things as they are; and, like martyrs and fanatics, they attach a degree of glory to every privation and punishment in the noble cause of opposition to what they conceive is unjust au-