Nostromo - A Tale of the Seaboard.pdf - Planet eBook

fugitives who, with the general, carried out of the woodsthe inanimate body of the general’s wife into the farmhousewhere she died, exhausted by the hardships of that terribleretreat. He had survived that disastrous time to attendhis general in Palermo when the Neapolitan shells fromthe castle crashed upon the town. He had cooked for himon the field of Volturno after fighting all day. And everywherehe had seen Englishmen in the front rank of the armyof freedom. He respected their nation because they lovedGaribaldi. Their very countesses and princesses had kissedthe general’s hands in London, it was said. He could wellbelieve it; for the nation was noble, and the man was a saint.It was enough to look once at his face to see the divine forceof faith in him and his great pity for all that was poor, suffering,and oppressed in this world.The spirit of self-forgetfulness, the simple devotion toa vast humanitarian idea which inspired the thought andstress of that revolutionary time, had left its mark uponGiorgio in a sort of austere contempt for all personal advantage.This man, whom the lowest class in Sulaco suspectedof having a buried hoard in his kitchen, had all his life despisedmoney. The leaders of his youth had lived poor, haddied poor. It had been a habit of his mind to disregardto-morrow. It was engendered partly by an existence of excitement,adventure, and wild warfare. But mostly it was amatter of principle. It did not resemble the carelessness ofa condottiere, it was a puritanism of conduct, born of sternenthusiasm like the puritanism of religion.This stern devotion to a cause had cast a gloom upon