lf to
acknowledge that such a thing as madness stigmatized his family. But
the sentimental mind conceived it as 'monstrous impiety' to bring
this accusation against a parent who did not break windows, or grin to
deformity. He behaved toward him as to a reasonable person, and felt the
rebellious rancour instead of the pity. Thus sentiment came in the way
of pity. By degrees, Sir Purcell transferred all his father's madness
to the Fates by whom he was persecuted. There was evidently madness
somewhere, as his shuddering human nature told him. It did not offend
his sentiment to charge this upon the order of the universe.

Against such a wild-hitting madness, or concentrated ire of the superior
Powers, Sir Purcell stood up, taking blow upon blow. As organist of
Hillford Church, he brushed his garments, and put a polish on his
apparel, with an energetic humility that looked like unconquerable
patience; as though he had said: "While life is left in me, I will be
seen for what I am." We will vary it--"For what I think myself." In
reality, he fought no battle. He had been dead-beaten from his boyhood.
Like the old Spanish Governor, the walls of whose fortress had been
thrown down by an earthquake, and who painted streets to deceive the
enemy, he was rendered safe enough by his astuteness, except against a
traitor from within.

One who goes on doggedly enduring, doggedly doing his best, must subsist
on comfort of a kind that is likely to be black comfort. The mere piping
of the musical devil shall not suffice. In Sir Purcell's case, it
had long seemed a magnanimity to him that he should hold to a life so
vindictively scourged, and his comfort was that he had it at his own
disposal. To know so much, to suffer, and still to refrain, flattered
his pride. "The term of my misery is in my hand," he said, softened by
the reflection. It is our lowest philosophy.

But, when the heart of a man so fashioned is stirred to love a woman, it
has a new vital force, new health, and cannot play these solemn pranks.
The flesh, and all its fatality, claims him. When Sir Purcell became
acquainted with Cornelia, he found the very woman his heart desired, or
certainly a most admirable picture of her. It was, perhaps, still
more to the lady's credit, if she was only striving to be what he was
learning to worship. The beneficial change wrought in him, made him
enamoured of healthy thinking and doing. Had this, as a result of sharp
mental overhauling,