the journey from Corleone Lodge to the House of Lords. What we call

rising in life is leaving the safe for the dangerous path. Which is,

thenceforth, the straight line? Towards whom is our first duty? Is it

towards those nearest to ourselves, or is it towards mankind generally?

Do we not cease to belong to our own circumscribed circle, and become

part of the great family of all? As we ascend we feel an increased

pressure on our virtue. The higher we rise, the greater is the strain.

The increase of right is an increase of duty. We come to many

cross-ways, phantom roads perchance, and we imagine that we see the

finger of conscience pointing each one of them out to us. Which shall we

take? Change our direction, remain where we are, advance, go back? What

are we to do? That there should be cross-roads in conscience is strange

enough; but responsibility may be a labyrinth. And when a man contains

an idea, when he is the incarnation of a fact--when he is a symbolical

man, at the same time that he is a man of flesh and blood--is not the

responsibility still more oppressive? Thence the care-laden docility and

the dumb anxiety of Gwynplaine; thence his obedience when summoned to

take his seat. A pensive man is often a passive man. He had heard what

he fancied was the command of duty itself. Was not that entrance into a

place where oppression could be discussed and resisted the realization

of one of his deepest aspirations? When he had been called upon to

speak--he the fearful human scantling, he the living specimen of the

despotic whims under which, for six thousand years, mankind has groaned

in agony--had he the right to refuse? Had he the right to withdraw his

head from under the tongue of fire descending from on high to rest upon

him?

888

The Man Who Laughs