The same writer, in one of his minor productions, says, "When a good man
has long devoted himself to a particular kind of beneficence, to one
species of reform, he is apt to become narrowed into the limits of the
path wherein he treads, and to fancy that there is no other good to be
done on earth but that self-same good to which he has put his hand, and
in the very mode that best suits his own conceptions. All else is
worthless. His scheme must be wrought out by the united strength of the
whole world's stock of love, or the world is no longer worthy of a
position in the universe. Moreover, powerful Truth, being the rich
grape-juice expressed from the vineyard of the ages, has an intoxicating
quality when imbibed by any save a powerful intellect, and often, as it
were, impels the quaffer to quarrel in his cups."
At a dinner-party one day, Madame de Stael said to Lady Mackintosh,
after Godwin was gone, "I am glad to have seen this man,--it is curious
to see how naturally Jacobins become the advocates of tyrants."
"I have often blamed myself," said Boswell, "for not feeling for others
as sensibly as many say they do." "Sir," replied Johnson, "don't be
duped by them any more. You will find these very feeling people are not
very ready to do you good. They pay you by feeling."
A very large proportion of the men who during the French Revolution
proved themselves most absolutely indifferent to human suffering, were
deeply attached to animals. Fournier was devoted to a squirrel, Couthon
to a spaniel, Panis to two gold pheasants, Chaumette to an aviary, Marat
kept doves. Bacon has noticed that the Turks, who are a most cruel
people, are nevertheless conspicuous for their kindness to animals, and
he mentions the instance of a Christian boy who was nearly stoned to
death for gagging a long-billed fowl. Abbas, the viceroy, when a boy,
had his pastry-cook bastinadoed to death. Mehemet Ali mildly reproved
him for it, as a European would correct a child for killing a butterfly.
He explained to his little grandson that such things ought not to be
done without a motive. Abbe Migne tells how one old Roman fed his
oysters on his slaves; how another put a slave to death that a curious
friend might see what dying was like; how Galen's mother tore and bit
her waiting-women when she was in a passion with them. Caligula
conferred the honor of priesthood upon his horse. "The day before the
Circensian games," says Suetonius, "he used to send his soldiers to
enjoin silence in the neighborhood, that the repose of the animal might
not be disturbed. For this favorite, besides a marble stable, an ivory
manger, purple housings, and a jeweled frontlet, he appointed a house,
with a retinue of slaves, and fine furniture, for the reception of such
as were invited in the horse's name to sup with him. It is even said
that he intended to make him consul." In Egypt there are hospitals for
superannuated cats, and the most loathsome insects are regarded with
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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