Chapter 24

"Which is the wiser here?--Justice or iniquity?"
MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

In the constant struggle between the innocent and the artful, the latter
have the advantage, so long as they confine themselves to familiar
interests. But the moment the former conquer their disgust for the study
of vice, and throw themselves upon the protection of their own high
principles, they are far more effectually concealed from the
calculations of their adversaries than if they practised the most
refined of their subtle expedients. Nature has given to every man enough
of frailty to enable him to estimate the workings of selfishness and
fraud, but her truly privileged are those who can shroud their motives
and intentions in a degree of justice and disinterestedness, which
surpass the calculations of the designing. Millions may bow to the
commands of a conventional right, but few, indeed, are they who know how
to choose in novel and difficult cases. There is often a mystery in
virtue. While the cunning of vice is no more than a pitiful imitation of
that art which endeavors to cloak its workings in the thin veil of
deception, the other, in some degree, resembles the sublimity of
infallible truth.

Thus men too much practised in the interests of life, constantly
overreach themselves when brought in contact with the simple and
intelligent; and the experience of every day proves that, as there is no
fame permanent which is not founded on virtue, so there is no policy
secure which is not bottomed on the good of the whole. Vulgar minds may
control the concerns of a community so long as they arc limited to
vulgar views; but woe to the people who confide on great emergencies in
any but the honest, the noble, the wise, and the philanthropic; for
there is no security for success when the meanly artful control the
occasional and providential events which regenerate a nation. More than
half the misery which has defeated as well as disgraced civilization,
proceeds from neglecting to use those great men that are always created
by great occasions.

Treating, as we are, of the vices of the Venetian system, our pen has
run truant with its subject, since the application of the moral must be
made on the familiar scale suited to the incidents of our story. It has
already been seen that Gelsomina was intrusted with certain important
keys of the prison. For this trust there had been sufficient motive with
the wily guardians of the jail, who had made their calculations on her
serving their particular orders, without ever suspecting that she was
capable of so far listening to the promptings of a generous temper, as
might induce her to use them in any manner prejudicial to their own
views. The service to which they were now to be