But here was a stolid small obstacle, scarce assailable on its own level; and he had chosen that it should be attacked through its own laws and forms.

By shutting a door, by withholding an answer to his knocks, the thing reduced him to hesitation.

And the thing had weapons to shoot at him; his history, his very blood, stood open to its shafts; and the sole quality of a giant, which he could show to front it, was the breath of one for a mark.
These direct perceptions of the circumstances were played on by the fever he drew from his Fiesco bed.

Accuracy of vision in our crises is not so uncommon as the proportionate equality of feeling: we do indeed.
frequently see with eyes of just measurement while we are conducting ourselves like madmen.

The facts are seen, and yet the spinning nerves will change their complexion; and without enlarging or minimizing, they will alternate their effect on us immensely through the colour presenting them now sombre, now hopeful: doing its work of extravagance upon perceptibly plain matter.