Summary
“Ingrata Patria!”
Dante's Epitaph.“Que l'homme donc s'estime son prix.—il a en lui la capacité de connôitre la vérité, et d'être heureux: mais il n'a point de vérité, ou constante, ou satisfaisante. Je voudrois donc porter l'homme à, désirer d'en trouver; à être prêt et dégagé des passions pour la suivre où il la trouvera.”
—Pascal.Among the select classes of men to whom the common race looks up with the heart-throb of mingled reverence and sympathy, none is perhaps so eminent as that of sufferers for opinion. If ever we are conscious of a breathing of the God-head in man, it is in the sanctified presence, actual or ideal, of martyrs to truth. Such men, as a class, are liable to particular faults, are usually marked by the imperfections which attend their virtues, as shadows are a consequence of sunshine. But in no case are men in general so tolerant of faults as in theirs;—I do not mean in their own day, when they are not commonly recognised as confessors and martyrs,—but when they stand out from the records of time, complete characters in history. The turbulence, jealousy, and self-will of such men are allowed for more liberally than the same faults in other orders of men,—more slightly noticed,—more eagerly extenuated. And why? Because, of all men, they most infallibly and extensively command sympathy.
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- Retrospect of Western Travel , pp. 175 - 198Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010