|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: yet, alas! most flattering to poor humanity--the voice of envy,
simple and undisguised; of envy, which moralists hold to be one of
the basest of human passions; which can never be justified, however
hateful or unworthy be the envied man. And when a whole people, or
even a majority thereof, shall be possessed by that, what is there
that they will not do?
Some are surprised and puzzled when they find, in the French
Revolution of 1793, the noblest and the foulest characters labouring
in concert, and side by side--often, too, paradoxical as it may
seem, united in the same personage. The explanation is simple.
Justice inspired the one; the other was the child of simple envy.
|
