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There are some women such as Marie Boyer and Gabrielle Fenayrou, who may be described as passively criminal, chameleon-like, taking colour from their surroundings. By the force of a man's influence they commit a dreadful crime, in the one instance it is matricide, in the other the murder of a former lover, but neither of the women is profoundly vicious or criminal in her instincts.
I see in the proselytism of Poppæa, guided by Jewish malice, the only adequate explanation of the first Christian persecution. Hers was the jealousy which had goaded Nero to matricide; hers not improbably was the instigated fanaticism of a proselyte which urged him to imbrue his hands in martyr blood. And she had her reward.
This was a just retaliation: to fall in open conflict would have been too honourable a death for Aegisthus. Voltaire has added, of his own invention, that he was also prohibited by the oracle from making himself known to his sister; and when carried away by fraternal love, he breaks this injunction, he is blinded by the Furies, and involuntarily perpetrates the deed of matricide.
Thus debarred from the successes which had so long flattered his self-love, Lucan gave his mind to worthier subjects. This gave Nero the opportunity he desired. In vain the unhappy young man abased himself to humble flattery, to piteous entreaty, even to the incrimination of his own mother, a base proceeding which he hoped might gain him the indulgence of a matricide prince. All was useless.
A man may be quietly parasitic upon his mother, and yet incapable of matricide.
Tierra del Fuego, first arrival Good Success Bay An Account of the Fuegians on board Interview With the Savages Scenery of the Forests Cape Horn Wigwam Cove Miserable Condition of the Savages Famines Cannibals Matricide Religious Feelings Great Gale Beagle Channel Ponsonby Sound Build Wigwams and settle the Fuegians Bifurcation of the Beagle Channel Glaciers Return to the Ship Second Visit in the Ship to the Settlement Equality of Condition amongst the Natives.
If Orestes be accused of matricide, unless he says this, "I did it rightfully, for she had murdered my father," he has no defence at all. And if his defence be taken away, then all dispute is taken away also. The principle of his argument then is that she murdered Agamemnon.
Nor was it unnatural that it should be. Moral precepts, philosophic guidance were no longer possible to one whose compliances or whose timidity had led him so far as first to sanction matricide, and then to defend it.
The Wanika of Eastern Africa fancy that every tree, and especially every coco-nut tree, has its spirit; "the destruction of a cocoa-nut tree is regarded as equivalent to matricide, because that tree gives them life and nourishment, as a mother does her child."
Was it partly because I killed Foorgat and partly because I came to place and influence and power, that you used me so, and all that I did? Or was it the East at war with the West, the immemorial feud and foray? "This last I will believe; for then it will seem to be something beyond yourself centuries of predisposition, the long stain of the indelible that drove you to those acts of matricide.
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