Page:Artabanzanus (Ferrar, 1896).djvu/239

Rh a few minutes can bring in its train remorse and unhappiness that may last as long as reason and memory remain. Study carefully your fellow-creatures and yourself, and judge their feelings by your own. Man is a proud creature, and, to do him justice, he has some reason for his pride. Look at his genius, and even his minor talents. What wonderful works have been raised up by the architects of antiquity; what beautiful images have been carved from rude blocks of stone! what glorious thoughts, and noble creations, have been bequeathed to us by men like Homer and Æschylus, Shakespeare and Milton! And all these things, and other things—astonishing, innumerable, and almost incredible—done by a weak and insignificant creature who, one would think, in order to enable him to contend with the elements of Nature, as I think you have hinted, ought to have been made of the toughest iron. Yet, in the extremity of his pride, he becomes foolish. He presumes to think be is enrolled in the highest rank of living beings; he hardly stays to inquire who placed him in that rank. His philosophy is, in his own opinion, true and infallible; his religion—whatever religion he boasts of—the only right one; and his power and his cleverness almost supreme. He forgets that he is only an ephemeral creature. Sometimes, as we all know, he degenerates—although he may be polished, educated, civilized—into a debased and brutal being. What of all this, you will ask; you knew it before; you, at least, are no fool' (he had called me one, though, more than once); 'you have read multitudes of books, and heard lectures and sermons galore, and been taken to task by smooth-faced hypocrites and bullying tyrants. What do you think of the situation, eh?'

'I am overwhelmed with sorrow, Doctor,' I replied, 'that my imprudence and defiant thoughtlessness should have led us into this awful scrape. It is, indeed, a dreadful