FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32  
33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   >>   >|  
ither:--Here were features leading one to think of an illustrious Prince de Ligne as perhaps concerned in the affair. The Bibliographical Dictionaries, producing no evidence, name quite another person, or series of persons, [A certain 'N. de Bonneville' (afterwards a Revolutionary spiritual-mountebank, for some time) is now the favorite Name;--proves, on investigation, to be an impossible one. Barbier _(Dictionnaire des Anonymes),_ in a helpless doubting manner, gives still others.] highly unmemorable otherwise. Whereupon you proceed to said other person's acknowledged WORKS (as they are called); and find there a style bearing no resemblance whatever; and are left in a dubious state, if it were of any moment. In the absence of proof, I am unwilling to charge his Highness de Ligne with such an action; and indeed am little careful to be acquainted with the individual who did it, who could and would do it. A Prince of Coxcombs I can discern him to have been; capable of shining in the eyes of insincere foolish persons, and of doing detriment to them, not benefit; a man without reverence for truth or human excellence; not knowing in fact what is true from what is false, what is excellent from what is sham-excellent and at the top of the mode; an apparently polite and knowing man, but intrinsically an impudent, dark and merely modish-insolent man;--who, if he fell in with Rhadamanthus on his travels, would not escape a horse-whipping, Him we will willingly leave to that beneficial chance, which indeed seems a certain one sooner or later; and address ourselves to consider the theory itself, and the facts it pretends to be grounded on. "As to the theory, I must needs say, nothing can be falser, more heretical or more damnable. My own poor opinion, and deep conviction on that subject is well known, this long while. And, in fact, the summary of all I have believed, and have been trying as I could to teach mankind to believe again, is even that same opinion and conviction, applied to all provinces of things. Alas, in this his sad theory about the world, our poor impudent Pamphleteer is by no means singular at present; nay rather he has in a manner the whole practical part of mankind on his side just now; the more is the pity for us all!-- "It is very certain, if Beelzebub made this world, our Pamphleteer, and the huge portion of mankind that follow him, are right. But if God made the world; and only leads Beelzebub, as some ugl
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32  
33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
mankind
 

theory

 

excellent

 

person

 
impudent
 
Prince
 

manner

 
Pamphleteer
 

Beelzebub

 

knowing


persons

 

conviction

 
opinion
 

grounded

 
pretends
 
travels
 

escape

 

whipping

 
Rhadamanthus
 

insolent


sooner

 

chance

 

beneficial

 
willingly
 

modish

 
address
 

practical

 

singular

 

present

 

follow


portion

 

subject

 
intrinsically
 

falser

 

heretical

 

damnable

 
applied
 
provinces
 

things

 

summary


believed

 

foolish

 

Dictionnaire

 

Anonymes

 
helpless
 

doubting

 
Barbier
 

impossible

 
favorite
 

proves