ying, Wherefore hast thou made thy yoke heavy upon
our friends and confederates the Jews?

"If therefore they complain any more against thee, we will do them
justice, and fight with thee by sea and by land."

I will venture to ask whether the Romans appear, in any one instance of
their history, more truly great than they do here.

Paoli said, "If a man would preserve the generous glow of patriotism, he
must not reason too much. Mareschal Saxe reasoned; and carried the arms
of France into the heart of Germany, his own country.[120] I act from
sentiment, not from reasonings."

[Footnote 120:

"Ce fier Saxon, qu'on croit ne parmi nous."

--Voltaire, "Poeme de Fontenoi."--ED.]

"Virtuous sentiments and habits," said he, "are beyond philosophical
reasonings, which are not so strong, and are continually varying. If all
the professours in Europe were formed into one society, it would no
doubt be a society very respectable, and we should there be entertained
with the best moral lessons. Yet I believe I should find more real
virtue in a society of good peasants in some little village in the
heart of your island. It might be said of these two societies, as was
said of Demosthenes and Themistocles, 'Illius dicta, hujus facta magis
valebant. The one was powerful in words, but the other in deeds.'"

This kind of conversation led me to tell him how much I had suffered
from anxious speculations. With a mind naturally inclined to melancholy,
and a keen desire of inquiry, I had intensely applied myself to
metaphysical researches, and reasoned beyond my depth, on such subjects
as it is not given to man to know. I told him I had rendered my mind a
camera obscura, that in the very heat of youth I felt the "non est
tanti," the "omnia vanitas" of one who has exhausted all the sweets of
his being, and is weary with dull repetition. I told him that I had
almost become for ever incapable of taking a part in active life.

"All this," said Paoli, "is melancholy. I have also studied
metaphysicks. I know the arguments for fate and free-will, for the
materiality and immateriality of the soul, and even the subtile
arguments for and against the existence of matter. 'Ma lasciamo queste
dispute ai oziosi. But let us leave these disputes to the idle. Io tengo
sempre fermo un gran pensiero. I hold always firm one great object. I
never feel a moment of despondency.'"[121]

[Footnote 121: "Do not hope wholly to reason away your troubles