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There are other manifestations of greatness than to relieve
suffering or to wreck an empire. Julius Caesar and John Howard are
not the only heroes who have smiled upon the world. In the supreme
adaptation of means to an end there is a constant nobility, for
neither ambition nor virtue is the essential of a perfect action.
How shall you contemplate with indifference the career of an artist
whom genius or good guidance has compelled to exercise his peculiar
skill, to indulge his finer aptitudes? A masterly theft rises in
its claim to respect high above the reprobation of the moralist.
The scoundrel, when once justice is quit of him, has a right to be
appraised by his actions, not by their effect; and he dies secure
in the knowledge that he is commonly more distinguished, if he be
less loved, than his virtuous contemporaries. While murder is
wellnigh as old as life, property and the pocket invented theft,
late-born among the arts. It was not until avarice had devised many
a cunning trick for the protection of wealth, until civilisation
had multiplied the forms of portable property, that thieving became
a liberal and an elegant profession. True, in pastoral society, the
lawless man was eager to lift cattle, to break down the barrier
between robbery and warfare. But the contrast is as sharp between
the savagery of the ancient reiver and the polished performance of
Captain Hind as between the daub of the pavement and the perfection
of Velasquez.
Originally published in 1917, this book presents the content of the
Leslie Stephen Lecture for that year, which was delivered by
Charles Whibley at Cambridge University. This book will be of value
to anyone with an interest in perspectives on Swift and his
writings.
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Lucian's True History;
Charles Whibley, Francis Hickes
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R501
Discovery Miles 5 010
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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