Here is Melchior de Willading's daughter, now, a woman to set a
city in a blaze, for she hath wit, and lands, and beauty, besides good
blood;--what, for instance, is thy opinion of her merit?"
"That she is deserving of all the happiness that every human excellence
ought to confer!"
"Hum--thou art nearer to thirty than I had thought thee, Herr Sigismund!
But touching this Balthazar, thou art not to believe, on account of the
few words of grace which fell from me, that my aversion for the wretch is
less than thine, or than that of any other honest man; but it would be
unseemly and unwise in a bailiff to desert the last minister of the law's
decrees in the face of the public. There are feelings and sentiments that
are natural to us all, and among them are to be classed respect and honor
for the well and nobly born," (the discourse was in German,) "and hatred
and contempt for those who are condemned of men. These are feelings which
belong to human nature itself, and God forbid that I, a man already past
the age of romance, should really entertain any sentiments that are not
strictly human.
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