Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/451

Rh and wished only to die. He was ill when he arrived at Oporto, lived there a few months, amidst prayers and severe penitential exercises, and died—within the year after his abdication.

But the star which was extinguished above his earthly career, was now first kindled into its highest glory over his memory, and he stands, at this moment, before his grateful people, in the splendor of a saint, whilst his struggle for liberty, and his last chivalric action, caused him to appear before Europe as a tragically heroic form. He was, however, as little like a saint as a hero or a great character. He was a man of noble impulses, but unequal, weak, and full of contradictions. Once having entered upon the path of liberty and reform, and being upheld there by the exulting shout of friends and of Europe, he could and would not again turn from it. But his inward struggle was often great between the Jesuits and the demands of freedom. Sincere piety—especially during the later years of his life—kept him from despair, and his chivalric sympathies, from the ignominy of a miserable position. But the struggle was more than he could bear; it undermined his health, both of body and soul; he became old before his time: he knew that he was not equal to the part, which the necessities of the time assigned to him. He wished to do that which was right, he loved that which was good, but he was governed by circumstances. He did not rule his age, but was ruled by it. The contradictions, the disharmony in his inward being, were also mirrored in his exterior. He was a tall man, of handsome proportions, but his demeanor wanted firmness and dignity. This