FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151  
152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   >>   >|  
favourably, he never spoke unfavourably but with justice. This is among the indications of orderly and elevated minds; and here stands the barrier that separates them from the common and the waste. Is a man to be angry because an infant is fretful? Is a philosopher to unpack and throw away his philosophy, because an idiot has tried to overturn it on the road, and has pursued it with gibes and ribaldry? _Leontion._ Theophrastus would persuade us that, according to your system, we not only should decline the succour of the wretched, but avoid the sympathies that poets and historians would awaken in us. Probably for the sake of introducing some idle verses, written by a friend of his, he says that, following the guidance of Epicurus, we should altogether shun the theatre; and not only when Prometheus and Oedipus and Philoctetes are introduced, but even when generous and kindly sentiments are predominant, if they partake of that tenderness which belongs to pity. I know not what Thracian lord recovers his daughter from her ravisher; such are among the words they exchange: _Father._ Insects that dwell in rotten reeds, inert Upon the surface of a stream or pool, Then rush into the air on meshy vans, Are not so different in their varying lives As we are.--Oh! what father on this earth, Holding his child's cool cheek within his palms And kissing his fair front, would wish him man?-- Inheritor of wants and jealousies, Of labour, of ambition, of distress, And, cruellest of all the passions, lust. Who that behold me, persecuted, scorned, A wanderer, e'er could think what friends were mine, How numerous, how devoted? with what glee Smiled my old house, with what acclaim my courts Rang from without whene'er my war-horse neighed? _Daughter._ Thy fortieth birthday is not shouted yet By the young peasantry, with rural gifts And nightly fires along the pointed hills, Yet do thy temples glitter with grey hair Scattered not thinly: ah, what sudden change! Only thy voice and heart remain the same: No! that voice trembles, and that heart (I feel), While it would comfort and console me, breaks. _Epicurus._ I would never close my bosom against the feelings of humanity; but I would calmly and well consider by what conduct of life they may enter it with the least importunity and violence. A
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151  
152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Epicurus
 

numerous

 

friends

 

Smiled

 

acclaim

 
courts
 
Holding
 

devoted

 
kissing
 

jealousies


behold

 

passions

 
ambition
 

distress

 
cruellest
 

persecuted

 
scorned
 
labour
 

wanderer

 

Inheritor


comfort

 

console

 

breaks

 

trembles

 

change

 

sudden

 

remain

 

importunity

 

violence

 

conduct


humanity

 
feelings
 

calmly

 

thinly

 

shouted

 
peasantry
 

birthday

 
fortieth
 

neighed

 
Daughter

glitter
 

temples

 
Scattered
 
nightly
 

pointed

 

surface

 
system
 

decline

 
wretched
 

succour