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The records of its abuse in the savage who loads women's slender shoulders with his burdens, leaves his sick to the wayside jackal, and knocks his aged father on the head when he is past work; the brutality of slave-drivers, the iniquities of vice-maddened Eastern despots; such things those who never have to deal with them may afford to forget.
No feudal despots oppressed the unprotected, for all were noble and udal born; no standing armies enabled the Crown to set popular opinion at defiance, for the swords of the Bonders sufficed to guard the realm; no military barons usurped an illegitimate authority, for the nature of the soil forbade the erection of feudal fortresses.
Like despots, he made the law to suit the circumstance, a system which works in the lives of prodigal sons the same confusion which fancy brings into art. Victurnien was quick-sighted, he saw clearly and without illusion, but he acted on impulse, and unwisely. An indefinable flaw of character, often seen in young men, but impossible to explain, led him to will one thing and do another.
Jupiter could dethrone his father, the god Saturn, because Saturn was not almighty and all-wise. These gods of the ancient time were merely exaggerated types of human heroes and despots. There could be war among them, and one of them overthrown; and Jupiter could divide the universe, after he had conquered and dethroned his father, with his two brothers.
Luna declared that if she must be trampled upon and very likely it was her fate! she would rather be trampled upon by men than by women, and that if Olive and her friends should get possession of the government they would be worse despots than those who were celebrated in history.
Despots grind half the human race, and despots stronger than man plague, pestilence, and famine grind the whole; and yet the world increases, and the green wheat of the human heart is not to be trampled out.
A prince who gets the better of you will not treat you after this fashion, unless he be a barbarian like those eastern despots who lay countries waste and destroy the labours of civilization; but if influenced by the ordinary promptings of humanity, will, as a rule, regard all his subject States with equal favour, and suffer them to pursue their usual employments, and retain almost all their ancient institutions, so that if they flourish not as free States might, they do not dwindle as States that are enslaved; by which I mean enslaved by a stranger, for of that other slavery to which they may be reduced by one of their own citizens, I have already spoken.
Meanwhile, what was truly great and noble in Renaissance Italy, found its proper home in Florence; where the spirit of freedom, if only as an idea, still ruled; where the populace was still capable of being stirred to super-sensual enthusiasm; and where the flame of the modern intellect burned with its purest, whitest lustre. I., Age of the Despots, p. 12. See Vol.
Nihilist papers and documents, printed both in the Russian and Polish languages, were scattered broadcast, and in such a secret manner that the police were wholly at fault, and the despots of Russia began to tremble as they had never done before. Money seemed to be plentiful, and a more perfect organization effected than were the Russian police.
There is nothing to be done with such people: they will not listen to argument from any other point of view: they must burn everybody else at the stake, or be burned themselves. Christophe thought that it was lucky that such people should live under a Republic: for all these little despots did at least annihilate each other.
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