I need hardly say that Malcolm, as soon as he learned what was
going on, made one of the company. And truly, although he did not
know even yet all the evil that threatened him, he stood in heavy
need of the support and comfort to be derived from such truths as
Mr Graham unfolded. Duncan also, although he took little interest
in what passed, went sometimes, and was welcomed.
The talk of the master not unfrequently lapsed into monologue, and
sometimes grew eloquent. Seized occasionally by the might of the
thoughts which arose in him,--thoughts which would, to him, have
lost all their splendour as well as worth, had he imagined them
the offspring of his own faculty, meteors of his own atmosphere
instead of phenomena of the heavenly region manifesting themselves
on the hollow side of the celestial sphere of human vision,--he
would break forth in grand poetic speech that roused to aspiration
Malcolm's whole being, while in the same instant calming him with
the summer peace of profoundest faith.
To no small proportion of his hearers some of such outbursts were
altogether unintelligible--a matter of no moment; but there were
of them who understood enough to misunderstand utterly: interpreting
his riches by their poverty, they misinterpreted them pitifully,
and misrepresented them worse. And, alas! in the little company
there were three or four men who, for all their upward impulses,
yet remained capable of treachery, because incapable of recognizing
the temptation to it for what it was.
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