urpose which has
impressed itself upon his work contributes largely to its power. But he
also knew that contemporary opinion would be divided upon it; and he has
given the divergent views it was certain to create, as constituting a
part of its history. He reminds us that two sets of persons equally
acquainted with the facts, equally free from any wish to distort them,
might be led into opposite judgments through the mere action of some
impalpable bias in one direction or the other, which third, more
critical or more indifferent, would adopt a compromise between the two;
and he closes his introductory chapter with a tribute to that mystery of
human motive and character which so often renders more conclusive
judgments impossible.

"Action now shrouds, now shows the informing thought:
Man, like a glass ball with a spark a-top,
Out of the magic fire that lurks inside,
Shows one tint at a time to take the eye
Which, let a finger touch the silent sleep,
Shifted a hair's-breadth shoots you dark for bright,
Suffuses bright with dark, and baffles so
Your sentence absolute for shine or shade." (vol. viii. p. 55.)

The three forms of opinion here indicated appear in the three following
chapters as the respective utterance of "HALF-ROME," "THE OTHER
HALF-ROME," and "TERTIUM QUID."

HALF-ROME has an instinctive sympathy with the husband who has been made
ridiculous, and the nobleman who is threatened with an ignominious
death; and is disposed throughout to regard him as more sinned against
than sinning. "Count Guido has been unfortunate in everything. He is one
of those proud and sensitive men who make few friends, and who meet
reverses half-way. He has waited thirty years for advancement in the
church, is sick of hope deferred, and is on the point of returning home
to end his days, as he thinks, in frugality and peace, when a pretty
girl is thrown in his way. Visions of domestic cheerfulness and comfort
rise up before him. He is entrapped into marriage before he has had time
to consider what he is doing, and discovers when it is too late that the
parents reputed wealthy have little left but debts; and that in exchange
for their daughter's dowry, present and prospective, he must virtually
maintain them as well as her."

"He is far from rich, but he makes the best of a bad bargain--takes the
three with him to Arezzo, and lodges them with his mother and his
youngest brother