“Yes; and that very plainness gives me trouble. My natural feelings revolt against this sentiment: I fancy I ought to despise a man who does not resent an injury, and return hatred for hatred. To forgive at most would be much; but to do good in return for evil, seems to me an unnatural exaction from human nature. Now, while I feel all this, I am conscious that I have been brought to esteem you, for conduct exactly the reverse of what I am naturally impelled to expect.” “Oh, do not talk of me, my dear mistress; but look at the simple principle; you honor it in others, too. Do you despise, or do you respect, Aristides, for obliging a boorish enemy, by writing, when asked, his own name on the shell that voted his banishment? Do you, as a Roman lady, contemn or honor the name of Coriolanus, for his generous forbearance to your city?” “I venerate both, most truly, Syra; but then you know those were heroes, and not every-day men.” “And why should we not all be heroes?” asked Syra, laughing. “Bless me, child! what a world we should live in, if we were. It is very pleasant reading about the feats of such wonderful people; but one would be very sorry to see them performed by common men, every day.” “Why so?” pressed the servant. “Why so? who would like to find a baby she was nursing, playing with, or strangling, serpents in the cradle? I should be very sorry to have a gentleman, whom I invited to dinner, telling me coolly he had that morning killed a minotaur, or strangled a hydra; or to have a friend offering to send the Tiber through my stables, to cleanse them. Preserve us from a generation of heroes, say I.” And Fabiola laughed heartily at the conceit. In the same good humor Syra continued: “But suppose we had the misfortune to live in a country where such monsters existed, centaurs and minotaurs, hydras and dragons. Would it not be better that common men should be heroes enough to conquer them, than that we should have to send off to the other side of the world for a Theseus, or a Hercules, to destroy them? In fact, in that case, a man would be no more a hero if he fought them, than a lion-slayer is in my country.” “Quite true, Syra; but I do not see the application of your idea.” “It is this: anger, hatred, revenge, ambition, avarice, are to my mind as complete monsters as serpents or dragons; and they attack common men as much as great ones. Why should not I try to be as able to conquer them as Aristides, or Coriolanus, or Cincinnatus? Why leave it to heroes only, to do what we can do as well?” “And do you really hold this as a common moral principle? If so, I fear you will soar too high.” “No, dear lady. You were startled when I ventured to maintain that inward and unseen virtue was as necessary as the outward and visible: I fear I must surprise you still more.” “Go on, and do not fear to tell me all.”