All his family, from the cold-hearted, clear-headed Clement Sutherland, down to the ardent and impulsive India, had miscalculated the strength of his character and the firmness of his purpose. And hence the _comparative indifference_ with which they had hitherto received the communication of his intentions. I say comparative indifference; for though indeed the family were much disturbed that he should for a moment entertain such purposes as he had revealed, yet none of them had doubted that the influences which should be brought to bear upon him would compel him to abandon his project. And thus agitation at this time was calmness, perfect halcyon peace, in comparison with the confusion, the chaos, the tremendous storm of indignation, opposition, and persecution, that afterwards arose and hurtled around him. There are no wars so bloody as civil wars; there are no feuds so deadly as family feuds; there are no enemies so bitter, so cruel, so unrelenting, as those of our own blood, when they _are_ enemies! Others may spare, but they will _never_ spare! Others may in time become sated with vengeance, but _they_ never! while their victim has one faculty of mind left uncrazed, or one heartstring unwrung. Others may in time be touched by some sense of justice; _they_ never! they hold to and defend their cruelty. Others may repent; _they_ never. It would seem that a fatal blindness of sight and hardness of heart fell upon them as a judgment from Heaven for their unnatural sin. Perhaps _you_ think that the days of martyrdom have been passed ever since the stake and the faggot went into disrepute; and that the spirit of persecution went out with the fires of Smithfield. If you do, may you never have more reason for thinking otherwise than is contained in the simple narrative before you. I am not going to enter minutely into the details of all the scenes that followed that last interview between Mark and India. I have all this time gone around and about the subject, fearing or disliking to approach it. In real life, evil, malignant passion is not really the graceful and dignified and all but too fascinating thing that we see it represented on the stage—for instance, in the toga and buskins of Brutus, and Cassius, or the train and plumes of Lucretia Borgia. Nor has it a stately, measured gait, a sonorous utterance, or a grand gesture. It is a humiliating fact, but it _is_ a fact, that it looks and behaves very much more like an excited Terry or Judy at a fair. It shakes its fists, and strides, and vociferates, and chokes, and stutters. Fierce anger, hatred, and vengeance are of _no_ rank. They show just as hideous, revolting, and _vulgar_, in the prince or princess, as in the meanest peasant. And all this has been suggested by the recollection of the manner in which Mark Sutherland was treated by his family.