This vice has for its most laughable effect the raising of a whole host
of phantoms, and when a State is so far gone that civic Fear is quite
normal to the citizens, then you will find them blenching with terror at
a piece of print, a whispered accusation. Bankruptcy, though they be
possessed of nothing, and even the ill-will of women. Moneylenders under
this influence have the greatest power, next after them, blackmailers of
all kinds, and next after these eccentrics who may blurt or break out.
Those who have least power in the decline of a State, are priests,
soldiers, the mothers of many children, the lovers of one woman, and
saints.
On Past Greatness
There lies in the North-East of France, close against the Belgian
frontier and within cannon shot of the famous battlefield of Malplaquet,
a little town called Bavai--I have written of it elsewhere.
Coming into this little town you seem to be entering no more than a
decent, unimportant market borough, a larger village meant for country
folk, perhaps without a history and certainly without fame.
As you come to look about you one thing after another enlivens your
curiosity and suggests something at once enormous and remote in the
destinies of the place.
In the first place, seven great roads go out like the seven rays of a
star, plumb straight, darting along the line, across the vast, bare
fields of Flanders, past and along the many isolated woods of the
provinces, and making to great capitals far off--to Cologne, to Paris,
to Treves, and to the ports of the sea.
Pages:
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211