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Essays in Rebellion by Henry W. Nevinson
page 25 of 336 (07%)
hounds.

It is this conception that makes rebellion so rare and so dangerous. In
hives it seems never to occur. In rookeries, the rebels are pecked to
death and their homes torn in pieces. In human communities we have seen
how they are treated. Rebellion is the one crime for which there is no
forgiveness--the one crime for which hanging is too good.

Why is it, then, that all the world loves a rebel? Provided he is
distant enough in time and space, all the world loves a rebel. Who are
the figures in history round whom the people's imagination has woven the
fondest dreams? Are they not such rebels as Deborah and Judith[4] and
Joan of Arc; as Harmodius and Aristogeiton, the Gracchi and Brutus,
William Tell, William Wallace, Simon de Montfort, Rienzi, Wat Tyler,
Jack Cade, Shan O'Neill, William the Silent, John Hampden and Pym, the
Highlanders of the Forty-five, Robert Emmet and Wolf Tone and Parnell,
Bolivar, John Brown of Harper's Ferry, Kossuth, Mazzini and Garibaldi,
Danton, Victor Hugo, and the Russian revolutionists? These are haphazard
figures of various magnitude, but all have the quality of rebellion in
common, and all have been honoured with affectionate glory, romance, and
even a mythology of worship.

So, too, the most attractive periods in history have been times of
rebellion--the Reformation in Germany, the Revolt of the Netherlands
from Spain, the Civil Wars in England, the War of Independence in
America, the prolonged revolution in Russia. Within the last hundred
years alone, how numerous the rebellions have been, as a rule how
successful, and in every case how much applauded, except by the dominant
authority attacked! We need only recall the French revolutions of 1832,
1848, and 1870 to 1871, including the Commune; the Greek War of
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