So true, also, is the process of her development to what is
called nature--to the laws and principles that regulate human action and
life--that, as it proceeds before us, we almost lose note that there is
development. The fair young heathen first presented to us, linked on to
classic times and moralities through all the surroundings of her life,
passes on so imperceptibly into the "visible Madonna" of the after-time,
that we scarcely observe the change till it is accomplished. From the
first, we know that the mature is involved in the young Romola. The
reason of this is, that from first to last the essential principle of
life is in her the same. Equally, when she first comes before us, and in
all the after-glory of her serene unconscious self-devotedness, she is
living to others, not to herself.
Her first devotion is to her father. Her one passion of life is to
compensate to him all he has lost: the eyes, once so full of fire, now
sightless; the son and brother, who, at the call of an enthusiasm with
which their nobler natures refuse to sympathise--for it was, in the first
instance, but the supposed need to save his own soul--has fled from his
nearest duty of life.
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