St. George and St. Michael, Volume 3MacDonald, George
History
St. George and St. Michael, Volume 3
MacDonald, George
Great Britain -- History -- Civil War, 1642-1649 -- Fiction
And Richard was well rewarded for the kindness he had shown, for ere
they said good bye, the German, whose heart was full of Dorothy, and
understood, as indeed every one in the castle did, something of her
relation to Richard, had told him all he knew about her life in the
castle, and how she had been both before and during the siege a
guardian angel, as the marquis himself had said, to Raglan. Nor was
the story of her attempted visit to her old playfellow in the turret
chamber, or the sufferings she had to endure in consequence,
forgotten; and when Caspar and he parted, Richard rode home with
fresh strength and light and love in his heart, and Lady shared in
them all somehow, for she constantly reflected, or imaged rather,
the moods of her master. As much as ever he believed Dorothy
mistaken, and yet could have kneeled in reverence before her. He had
himself tried to do the truth, and no one but he who tries to do the
truth can perceive the grandeur of another who does the same. Alive
to his own shortcomings, such a one the better understands the
success of his brother or sister: there the truth takes to him
shape, and he worships at her shrine. He saw more clearly than
before what he had been learning ever since she had renounced him,
that it is not correctness of opinion--could he be SURE that his
own opinions were correct?--that constitutes rightness, but that
condition of soul which, as a matter of course, causes it to move
along the lines of truth and duty--the LIFE going forth in motion
according to the law of light: this alone places a nature in harmony
with the central Truth. It was in the doing of the will of his
Father that Jesus was the son of God--yea the eternal son of the
eternal Father.
Nor was this to make little of the truth intellectually
considered--of the FACT of things. The greatest fact of all is that
we are bound to obey the truth, and that to the full extent of our
knowledge thereof, however LITTLE that may be. This obligation
acknowledged and OBEYED, the road is open to all truth--and the ONLY
road. The way to know is to do the known.
Then why, thought Richard with himself, should he and Dorothy be
parted? Why should Dorothy imagine they should? All depended on
their common magnanimity, not the magnanimity that pardons faults,
but the magnanimity that recognises virtues. He who gladly kneels
with one who thinks largely wide from himself, in so doing draws
nearer to the Father of both than he who pours forth his soul in
sympathetic torrent only in the company of those who think like
himself. If a man be of the truth, then and only then is he of those
who gather with the Lord.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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