re difficulty in performing the part of
prince, or he that of vagabond?'

In resentful reflections like this he showed how the seeds of Gabriel's
teaching matured and ripened in his heart, darkening hope, stifling even
gratitude. To impute to mere caprice, a passing whim, the benevolence of
the rich was a favourite theory of Gabriel; and if, when Gerald listened
first to such maxims, they made little or no impression upon him, now,
in the long silent hours of his solitude, they came up to agitate and
excite him. One startling illustration Gabriel had employed, that would
occur again and again to the boy's mind, in spite of himself.

'These benefactors,' said he, 'are like men who help a drowning swimmer
to sustain himself a little longer: they never carry him to the shore.
Their mission is not rescue, it is only to prolong a struggle, to
protract a fate.'

The snow lay on the Apennines, and even on the lower hills around
Florence, ere Gerald was sufficiently recovered to move about his room.
The great dreary house, silent and tenantless, was a dominion over which
he wandered at will, sitting hours long in contemplation of frescoed
walls and ceilings, richly carved architraves, and finely chiselled
traceries over door and window. Had they who reared such glorious
edifices left no heirs nor successors behind them? Why were such
splendours left to rot and decay? Why were patches of damp and mildew
suffered to injure these marvellous designs? Why were the floors
littered with carved and golden fretwork? What new civilisation
had usurped the place of the old one, that men preferred lowly
dwellings--tasteless, vulgar, and inconvenient--to those noble abodes,
elegant and spacious 'Could it possibly be that the change in men's
minds, the growing assertion of equality, had tended to suppress
whatever too boldly indicated superiority of station? Already
distinctions of dress were fading away. The embroidered jabot, the rich
falling ruffle, the ample peruke, and the slashed and braided coat, were
less and less often seen abroad. A simpler and more uniform taste in
costume began to prevail, the insignia of rank were seldom paraded in
public, and even the liveries of the rich displayed less of costliness
and show than in times past. Over and over had Gabriel directed
the youth's attention to these signs, saying, with his own stern
significance--

'You will see, boy, that men will not any longer wait for equality till
the church