The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: resignation or angelic patience. He moralized on the condition to
which the greatest princes might thus be brought at last by the
hand of God, and bade the Prince observe well his father's
present condition, in order that when he too should be laid thus
low, he might likewise be sustained by a conscience void of
offence." What more is needed to complete the disgusting picture?
Philip was fanatical up to the point where fanaticism borders
upon hypocrisy. He was possessed with a "great moral idea," the
idea of making Catholicism the ruler of the world, that he might
be the ruler of Catholicism. Why, it may be said, shall the
charge of fanaticism be allowed to absolve Isabella and extenuate
 The Unseen World and Other Essays |