And the
effect of this becomes still more dangerous, when it is attempted to
carry it out under the name of democracy,--American democracy! In
this manner it serves the despotic ends of European despots: they
point to the freest government in the world for examples of their
own absolutism, shield their autocracy beneath its democracy, and
with it annihilate the rights of the commoner.
Heedlessly wending his way, the man of rank and station at one side,
the courtesan with his bland smiles at the other, Lorenzo had not
seen the black poniard that was to cut the cord of his downfall,--it
had remained gilded. He drank copious draughts at the house of
licentiousness, became infatuated with the soft music that leads the
way of the unwary, until at length, he, unconsciously at it were,
found himself in the midst of a clan who are forming a plot to put
the black seal upon his dishonour. Monto Graspum, his money playing
through the hands of his minions in the gambling rooms, had
professed to be his friend. He had watched his pliable nature, had
studied the resources of his parents, knew their kindness, felt sure
of his prey while abetting the downfall. Causing him to perpetrate
the crime, from time to time, he would incite him with prospects of
retrieve, guide his hand to consummate the crime again, and watch
the moment when he might reap the harvest of his own infamy. Thus,
when he had brought the young man to that last pitiless issue, where
the proud heart quickens with a sense of its wrongs-when the mind
recurs painfully to the past, imploring that forgiveness which seems
beyond the power of mankind to grant, he left him a poor outcast,
whose errors would be first condemned by his professed friends.
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