Read "The Caxtons Part III" by Edward Bulwer-lytton online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
My father took three strides up and down the room, and then, halting on his hearth, and facing his brother, he thus spoke: "I condemn his deed, Roland! At best he was but a haughty egotist. I understand why Brutus should slay his sons. By that sacrifice he saved his country! What did this poor dupe of an exaggeration save? Nothing but his own name. He could not lift the crime from his son's soul, nor the dishonor from his son's memory. He could but gratify his own vain pride; and insensibly to himself, his act was whispered to him by the fiend that ever whispers to the heart of man, 'Dread men's opinions more than God's law! ' Oh, my dear brother! what minds like yours should guard against the most is not the meanness of evil, -- it is the evil that takes false nobility, by garbing itself in the royal magnificence of good."
My uncle walked to the window, opened it, looked out a moment, as if to draw in fresh air, closed it gently, and came back again to his seat; but during the short time the window had been left open, a moth flew in.