The work is indeed a "guide book," as well as much more, for it tells every one what he may do profitably or unprofitably in Sardinia--whether as traveller and private speculator, minding his own concerns; or as an enthusiastic disperser of ignorance, and renovator of the customs, manners, religion, and political condition of a people as unlike his own race and kindred as possible.
[1] _The Island of Sardinia._ By JOHN WARRE TYNDALE. 3 vols., post 8vo.
There would have been nothing in what had chanced to justify the suspicions that tortured me, but for my impressions as to the character of Vivian.
Reader, hast thou not, in the easy, careless sociability of youth, formed acquaintance with some one, in whose more engaging or brilliant qualities thou hast--not lost that dislike to defects or vices which is natural to an age when, even while we err, we adore what is good, and glow with enthusiasm for the ennobling sentiment and the virtuous deed--no, happily, not lost dislike to what is bad, nor thy quick sense of it,--but conceived a keen interest in the struggle between the bad that revolted, and the good that attracted thee, in thy companion? Then, perhaps, thou hast lost sight of him for a time--suddenly thou hearest that he has done something out of the way of ordinary good or commonplace evil: And, in either--the good or the evil--thy mind runs rapidly back over its old reminiscences, and of either thou sayest, "How natural!--only So-and-so could have done this thing!"
Thus I felt respecting Vivian. The most remarkable qualities in his character were his keen power of calculation, and his unhesitating audacity--qualities that lead to fame or to infamy, according to the cultivation of the moral sense and the direction of the passions. Had I recognised those qualities in some agency apparently of good--and it seemed yet doubtful if Vivian were the agent--I should have cried, "It is he! and the better angel has triumphed!" With the same (alas! with a yet more impulsive) quickness, when the agency was of evil, and the agent equally dubious, I felt that the qualities revealed the man, and that the demon had prevailed.
Mile after mile, stage after stage, were passed, on the dreary, interminable, high north road. I narrated to my companion, more intelligibly than I had yet done, my causes for apprehension. The Captain at first listened eagerly, then checked me on the sudden. "There may be nothing in all this!" he cried. "Sir, we must be men here--have our heads cool, our reason clear: stop!" And, leaning back in the chaise, Roland refused further conversation, and, as the night advanced, seemed to sleep. I took pity on his fatigue, and devoured my heart in silence. At each stage we heard of the party of which we were in pursuit. At the first stage or two we were less than an hour behind; gradually, as we advanced, we lost ground, despite the most lavish liberality to the postboys. I supposed, at length, that the mere circumstance of changing, at each relay, the chaise as well as the horses, was the cause of our comparative slowness; and, on saying this to Roland, as we were changing horses, somewhere about midnight, he at once called up the master of the inn, and gave him his own price for permission to retain the chaise till the journey's end. This was so unlike Roland's ordinary thrift, whether dealing with my money or his own--so unjustified by the fortune of either--that I could not help muttering something in apology.
