Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Miscellaneous Essays by Thomas De Quincey
page 64 of 204 (31%)
to relent, after a generation or two, before the grandeur of Hannibal.
Mithridates--a more doubtful person--yet, merely for the magic perseverance
of his indomitable malice, won from the same Romans the only real honor
that ever he received on earth. And we English have ever shown the same
homage to stubborn enmity. To work unflinchingly for the ruin of England;
to say through life, by word and by deed--_Delenda est Anglia Victrix_!
that one purpose of malice, faithfully pursued, has quartered some people
upon our national funds of homage as by a perpetual annuity. Better than an
inheritance of service rendered to England herself, has sometimes proved
the most insane hatred to England. Hyder Ali, even his far inferior son
Tippoo, and Napoleon, have all benefited by this disposition amongst
ourselves to exaggerate the merit of diabolic enmity. Not one of these men
was ever capable, in a solitary instance, of praising an enemy--[what
do you say to _that_, reader?] and yet in _their_ behalf, we consent to
forget, not their crimes only, but (which is worse) their hideous bigotry
and anti-magnanimous egotism; for nationality it was not. Suffrein, and
some half dozen of other French nautical heroes, because rightly they did
us all the mischief they could, [which was really great] are names justly
reverenced in England. On the same principle, La Pucelle d'Orleans, the
victorious enemy of England, has been destined to receive her deepest
commemoration from the magnanimous justice of Englishmen.

Joanna, as we in England should call her, but, according to her own
statement, Jeanne (or, as M. Michelet asserts, Jean[3]) d'Arc, was born at
Domrémy, a village on the marshes of Lorraine and Champagne, and dependent
upon the town of Vaucouleurs. I have called her a Lorrainer, not simply
because the word is prettier, but because Champagne too odiously reminds
us English of what are for _us_ imaginary wines, which, undoubtedly, _La
Pucelle_ tasted as rarely as we English; we English, because the Champagne
of London is chiefly grown in Devonshire; _La Pucelle_, because the
DigitalOcean Referral Badge