Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/221

210 on the mosaic on which his arms rested, with the sharply-defined delicacy of his features, death-white in the golden sun-glow that fell through the broad leaves of vine.

"I was wrong to say there is no devil," he thought; "there is one that cripples the strongest and tempts the wisest, and sets the fool above the sage, and kicks genius into a hovel to die, and gives diadems to idiots, and makes great lives plod wearily for daily bread round the ass's mill, and in the ass's shafts; there is a devil that runs riot in the world, flinging all the prizes to the dullard, who let them rust, and tossing all the blanks to the men who only want a chance to prove their mettle; there is a devil that leaves thrones to brainless dullards, and scratches out the winning blood from every race because it has no pedigree, that fills swine's troughs with pearls, and seals lips that drop eloquence; there is a devil that flings the wheat to the flames, and calls the chaff blessed bread, that lames the boldest ere they can start, and curses the new-born child in his cradle; there is a devil—the devil of Caste!"

When the failings of Democracy are hooted against her, one fair thing in her should be remembered—that in her sovereignties this one deadly