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As they were deterred, by religious awe, from removing the treasures thence, they were desirous of surrounding the temple with a wall. The walls were raised to a considerable height, when they suddenly fell down in ruins. But, both now, and frequently on other occasions, the goddess has either defended her own habitation and temple, or has exacted heavy expiations from those who had violated it.

Atheism, at least, leaves men such as they are; it will neither increase a man's intemperance, nor add to his debaucheries, it will not render him more cruel than his temperament before invited him to be: whereas superstition either lacks the rein to the most terrible passions, gives loose to the most abominable suggestions, or else procures easy expiations for the most dishonourable vices.

And they produce a host of books written by Musaeus and Orpheus, who were children of the Moon and the Muses that is what they say according to which they perform their ritual, and persuade not only individuals, but whole cities, that expiations and atonements for sin may be made by sacrifices and amusements which fill a vacant hour, and are equally at the service of the living and the dead; the latter sort they call mysteries, and they redeem us from the pains of hell, but if we neglect them no one knows what awaits us.

Disquieted and conscience-stricken, she now sends Chrysothemis with libations to appease the manes of the dead. Electra adjures Chrysothemis not to render such expiations to scatter them to the winds or on the dust to let them not approach the resting-place of the murdered king. Chrysothemis promises to obey the injunction, and departs.

Certain risks there were which were almost inevitable, initiation ceremonies into life, mild expiations to be paid to the gods of the modern underworld, the diseases of infancy and of childhood. Most of these could be passed over with little more than a temporary wrinkle to break her smile.

Neither is it necessary to restore them, because they are not necessary for the remission of sins before God. But if any one thus holds, he holds to the faith of a Jew and heathen. For also the heathen had certain expiations for offenses through which they imagined to be reconciled to God.

In the bleak life of Ethan Frome on his bleak hillside there blooms an exquisite love which during a few hours of rapture promises to transform his fate; but poverty clutches him, drives him to attempt suicide with the woman he loves, and then condemns him to one of the most appalling expiations in fiction to a slavery in comparison with which his former life was almost freedom.

Excluding the five grave sins that have been mentioned above, all other sins have expiations provided for them. Expiating those sins according to the ordinances laid down for them, one should not again indulge in them. The surviving kinsmen should make no scruple about such things on such occasions.

There was nothing in it of that Platonic sentimentality which marked the mediaeval courts of love; nor was it like the chivalrous idolatry of flesh and blood bestowed on queens of beauty at a tournament or tilt; nor was it poetic adoration kindled by the contemplation of ideal excellence, such as Dante saw in his lamented and departed Beatrice; nor was it mere intellectual admiration which bright and enthusiastic women sometimes feel for those who dazzle their brains, or who enjoy a great éclat; still less was it that impassioned ardor, that wild infatuation, that tempestuous frenzy, that dire unrest, that mad conflict between sense and reason, that sad forgetfulness sometimes of fame and duty, that reckless defiance of the future, that selfish, exacting, ungovernable, transient impulse which ignores God and law and punishment, treading happiness and heaven beneath the feet, such as doomed the greatest genius of the Middle Ages to agonies more bitter than scorpions' stings, and shame that made the light of heaven a burden; to futile expiations and undying ignominies.

Tchernoff's socialism and nationality brought vividly to his mind a series of feverish images bombs, daggers, stabbings, deserved expiations on the gallows, and exile to Siberia. No, he was not desirable as a friend. . . . But now Don Marcelo was experiencing an abrupt reversal of his convictions regarding alien ideas.