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Cruel tyrants reigned in cities, and rapacious priests fattened on the credulity of the people. Think of monks itinerating Europe to sell indulgences for sin; of monasteries and convents filled, not with sublime enthusiasts as in earlier times, but with gluttons and sensualists, living in concubinage and greedy of the very things which primitive monasticism denounced and abhorred!
I need the hypothesis of God to prove my good-will towards a multitude of sects, whose opinions I do not share, but whose malice I fear: theists; I know one who, in the cause of God, would be ready to draw sword, and, like Robespierre, use the guillotine until the last atheist should be destroyed, not dreaming that that atheist would be himself; mystics, whose party, largely made up of students and women marching under the banner of MM. Lamennais, Quinet, Leroux, and others, has taken for a motto, "Like master, like man;" like God, like people; and, to regulate the wages of the workingman, begins by restoring religion; spiritualists, who, should I overlook the rights of spirit, would accuse me of establishing the worship of matter, against which I protest with all the strength of my soul; sensualists and materialists, to whom the divine dogma is the symbol of constraint and the principle of enslavement of the passions, outside of which, they say, there is for man neither pleasure, nor virtue, nor genius; eclectics and sceptics, sellers and publishers of all the old philosophies, but not philosophers themselves, united in one vast brotherhood, with approbation and privilege, against whoever thinks, believes, or affirms without their permission; conservatives finally, retrogressives, egotists, and hypocrites, preaching the love of God by hatred of their neighbor, attributing to liberty the world's misfortunes since the deluge, and scandalizing reason by their foolishness.
Her conversation became less guarded, and took a freer turn than usual; she seized all opportunities of introducing little amorous stories, the greatest part of which were invented for the purposes of warming her passions, and lowering the price of chastity in her esteem; for she represented all the young lady's contemporaries in point of age and situation, as so many sensualists, who, without scruple, indulged themselves in the stolen pleasures of youth.
Realism! ... Let us have the filth of the gutters, the scourgings of dustholes, the corruption of graves, the odors of malaria, the howlings of drunkards, the revellings of sensualists, . . the worst side of the world in its vilest aspect, which is the only REAL aspect of those who are voluntarily vile!
They must either fall back upon their senses and become sensualists or seek a higher path and become mystics. There is little love lost between the Indians and the Arabs. The Arabs in Mesopotamia have long feared the incursion of India into their country, for they knew that the Indian farmer under the British engineers would make Mesopotamia blossom like a rose.
He did not recognize the chastening hand of God on tyrants and sensualists; he did not see the arm of retributive justice, more fearful than the daggers of Roman assassins, more stern than the overthrow of Persian hosts, more impressive than the handwriting on the wall of Belshazzar's palace; nor could he see how creation would succeed destruction amid the burnings of that vast funeral pyre.
There are many sensualists, my lord, who say, that I have thrown away my time and trouble in writing a treatise on Temperance, and other discourses on the same subject, to induce men to lead a regular life; alledging, that it is impossible to conform to it, so that my treatise must answer as little purpose as that of Plato on government, who took a great deal of pains to recommend a thing impracticable; whence they inferred, that as his treatise was of no use, mine will share the same fate.
In this picture is a most grand and melancholy moral lesson. The classical forms are evidently not introduced because they are classic, but in subservience to the expression of the moral. In the orgies of the sensualists here represented he gives all the grace and beauty of sensuality without its sensualizing effect.
It is a sweetness and a might, a glory and a power in which we are sensibly aware we could walk through a furnace unscathed if He bade us to do it. And by it we are lifted in a crystal vase and enclosed in the Presence of God. As a man's desire is so is he. If our desire is entirely towards fleshly things and joys and comforts, we are sensualists.
The wildest fanatics I ever knew, were real sensualists in their way of living, and cunning cheats in their dealings with mankind. Among the lower class of people at Boulogne, those who take the lead, are the sea-faring men, who live in one quarter, divided into classes, and registered for the service of the king.
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