mes to us, it is
only because Fate has linked the man to his victim, like unto that
Roman soldier who thrust his spear into the side of the Unselfish Man.

In the qualities that mark the four chief orators of the French
Revolution, there is much alloy--much that seems like clay. Each had
undergone an apprenticeship to Fate--each had been preparing for his
work; and in this preparation who shall say what lessons could have been
omitted and what not! Explosions require time to prepare: revolutions,
political and domestic, are a long time getting ready. Orators, like
artists, must go as did Dante, down into the nether regions and get a
glimpse of hell.

Jean Paul Marat was exactly five feet high, and his weight when at his
best was one hundred twenty pounds--just the weight of Shakespeare. Jean
Paul had a nose like the beak of a hawk, an eye like an eagle, a mouth
that matched his nose, and a chin that argued trouble. Not only did he
have red hair, but Carlyle refers to him as "red-headed."

His parents were poor and obscure people, and his relationship with them
seems a pure matter of accident. He was born at the village of Boudry,
Switzerland, in Seventeen Hundred Forty-three. His childhood and boyhood
were that of any other peasant boy born into a family where poverty held
grim sway, and toil and hardship never relaxed their chilling grasp.

His education was of the chance kind--but education anyway depends upon
yourself--colleges only supply a few opportunities, and it lies with
the student whether he will improve them or not.

The ignorance of his parents and the squalor of his surroundings acted
upon Jean Paul Marat as a spur, and from his fourteenth year the idea of
cultivating his mental estate was strong upon him.

Switzerland has ever been the refuge of the man who dares to think. It
was there John Calvin lived, demanding the right to his own belief, but
occasionally denying others that precious privilege; a few miles away,
at beautiful Coppet, resided Madame de Stael, the daughter of Necker; at
Geneva, Rousseau wrote, and to name that beautiful little island in the
Rhone after him was not necessary to make his fame endure; but a little
way from Boudry lived Voltaire, pointing his bony finger at every
hypocrite in Christendom.

But as in Greece, in her days of glory, the thinkers were few; so in
Switzerland, the land of freedom, the many have been, and are, chained
to superstition. Jean Paul Marat saw thei