He spoke, surely, of those whose
honour was dearest to her, whom she boundlessly loved. Under plea of
rebuking vice, he laid bare the secrets, violated the sanctities of their
private lives. Yet was not that incredible? All decencies of custom and
usage forbade it, stamped such disclosure as unpermissible, fantastic. He
must be mad, or she herself mad, mishearing, misconceiving him.
"Adulterous father, bastard son--publican sheltering youthful offenders
from healthy punishment in the interests of personal gain."--Of that last
she made nothing, failed to follow it. But the rest?--
It was true, too. But not as he represented it, all its tragic beauty,
all the nobleness which tempered and, in a measure at least, discounted
the great wrong of it, stripped away--leaving it naked, torn from its
setting, without context and so without perspective. Against this not
only her tenderness, but sense of justice, passionately fought. He made
it monstrous and, in that far, untrue, as caricature is untrue, crying
aloud for explanation and analysis.
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