painful, the temptations more dangerous, the inconsistencies too
often the more shameful, the capacities for evil as well as for good,
more huge, just in proportion to the native force and massiveness of
the soul? The doctrine may seem dangerous. It is dangerous, like
many truths; and woe to those who, being unlearned and unstable,
wrest it to their own destruction; and presume upon it to indulge
their own passions under Byronic excuses of 'genius,' or 'muscular
Christianity.' But it is true nevertheless: so at least the Bible
tells us, in its wonderful delineations of David, 'the man after
God's own heart,' and of St. Peter, the chief of the apostles. And
there are points of likeness between the character of Dietrich, and
that of David, which will surely suggest themselves to any acute
student of human nature. M. Thierry attributes to him, as his worse
self, 'les instincts les plus violents; la cruaute, l'astuce,
l'egoisme impitoyable.' The two first counts are undeniable--at
least during his youth: they were the common vices of the age. The
two latter I must hold as not proven by facts: but were they proven,
they would still be excusable, on the simple ground of his Greek
education. 'Cunning and pitiless egotism' were the only moral
qualities which Dietrich is likely to have seen exercised at the
court of Constantinople: and what wonder, if he was somewhat
demoralized by the abominable atmosphere which he breathed from
childhood? Dietrich is an illustration of the saga with which these
lectures began. He is the very type of the forest child, bewitched
by the fine things of the wicked Troll garden. The key to the man's
character, indeed the very glory of it, is the long struggle within
him, between the Teutonic and the Greek elements. Dazzled and
debauched, at times, by the sinful glories of the Bosphorus, its
palaces, its gold, and its women, he will break the spell
desperately. He will become a wild Goth and an honest man once more;