Society will then attend to it. When a victim fell before Achilles or
Diomedes, that victim begged for mercy. The spear then went through his
bowels. The times demanded it. They knew no mercy. There is no mercy in
the Iliad. The Barons, also, were a crowd of thugs. To-day, in New York,
or London, or Paris, they would each get twenty years on general
principles. We have no sluggers who are not their superiors. The atheist
should know it, and does. The world moves.
THERE MUST BE THOUGHTS
which reach beyond the human body. I remember well a day of serious
mental depression which I once suffered. But out of my sadness came
peace. Points in our memory lose their coloring rapidly, of course, yet
the feelings of that day and night still cause a thrill of pleasure in
my mind. I had been for days convinced that there were no real joys in
life. As my peace came, I began laboriously to pick out some chords on
a piano from the opera of "Lucretia Borgia"--the finale of the second
act. My labor was rewarded by the most pleasing sounds I had ever made
with my own fingers, and there was a general ebullition of pleasure and
expectation of future harmonies through my whole body for many hours
afterward.
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