When we came back to Rome, however, I saw that the tide had
turned and that we were close upon the rocks. It is, in fact, another
case of Ulysses alongside of the Sirens; only Roderick refuses to be
tied to the mast. He is the most extraordinary being, the strangest
mixture of qualities. I don't understand so much force going with so
much weakness--such a brilliant gift being subject to such lapses. The
poor fellow is incomplete, and it is really not his own fault; Nature
has given him the faculty out of hand and bidden him be hanged with it.
I never knew a man harder to advise or assist, if he is not in the mood
for listening. I suppose there is some key or other to his character,
but I try in vain to find it; and yet I can't believe that Providence
is so cruel as to have turned the lock and thrown the key away. He
perplexes me, as I say, to death, and though he tires out my patience,
he still fascinates me. Sometimes I think he has n't a grain of
conscience, and sometimes I think that, in a way, he has an excess. He
takes things at once too easily and too hard; he is both too lax and too
tense, too reckless and too ambitious, too cold and too passionate.
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