Voltaire's Romances, Complete in One VolumeVoltaire
Philosophy
Voltaire's Romances, Complete in One Volume
Voltaire
French fiction -- Translations into English
All enlightened Spaniards agree that a small number of their ancestors
abused this liberty so far as to commit crimes that make human nature
shudder. The second Don Carlos did what he could to repair the
atrocities committed by the Spaniards under Ferdinand and Charles V.
If there be crime in the world, my friends, there is virtue as well.
BIRTON.--Ah! ha! virtue! A good joke! I should like to see this virtue.
Where is she to be found?
At these words I could not contain myself.
"You may find her," said I, "in the worthy Mr. Freind, in Parouba, even
in yourself when your heart is cleansed of its vices."
He blushed; and John also. The latter looked down and seemed to feel
remorse. His father surveyed him with compassion and resumed.
FREIND.--Yes, dear friends. If there have always been crimes; there have
always been virtues too. Athens had such men as Socrates, as well as
such as Anitus. Rome had Catos, as well as Syllas. Nero frightened the
world by his atrocities, but Titus, Trajan, and the Antonines, consoled
it by their benevolence, My friend will explain to Parouba who these
great men were. Fortunately, I have Epictetus in my pocket. Epictetus
was a slave, but the equal of Marcus Aurelius in mind. Listen; and may
all who pretend to teach men hear what Epictetus says to himself,--"God
made me; I feel this; and shall I dare to dishonor him by infamous
thoughts, criminal actions, and base desires?" His mind agreed with his
conversation. Marcus Aurelius, on the throne of Europe and two parts of
our hemisphere, did not think otherwise than the slave Epictetus. The
one was never humiliated by meanness, nor the other dazzled by
greatness; and when they wrote their thoughts it was for the use of
their disciples, and not to be extolled in the papers. Pray, in your
opinion, were not Locke, Newton, Tillotson, Penn, Clarke, the good man
called "The Man of Ross," and many others, in and beyond your island,
models of virtue?
You have alluded to the cruel and unjust wars of which so many nations
have been guilty. You have described the abominations of Christians in
Mexico and Peru; you might add the St. Bartholomew of France and the
Irish massacre. But are there not people who have always held in
abhorrence the shedding of blood? Have not the Brahmins in all ages
given this example to the world? and, even in this country, have we not
near us, in Pennsylvania, our Philadelphians, whom they attempt in vain
to ridicule by the name of Quakers, and who have always hated war?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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