Explore "Calderon, the Courtier" by Edward Bulwer-lytton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Calderon's eyes were fixed musingly on the door which closed on Fonseca's martial and noble form.
"Great contrasts among men! " said he, half aloud. "All the classes into which naturalists ever divided the animal world contained not the variety that exists between man and man. And yet, we all agree in one object of our being -- all prey on each other! Glory, which is but the thirst of blood, makes yon soldier the tiger of his kind; other passions have made me the serpent: both fierce, relentless, unscrupulous -- both! hero and courtier, valour and craft! Hein! I will serve this young man -- he has served me. When all other affection was torn from me, he, then a boy, smiled on me and bade me love him. Why has he been so long forgotten? He is not of the race that I abhor; no Moorish blood flows in his veins; neither is he of the great and powerful, whom I dread; nor of the crouching and the servile, whom I despise: he is one whom I can aid without a blush."