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The Hermits by Charles Kingsley
page 86 of 291 (29%)
of tragedy.


PROLOGUE


Remember me in thy holy prayers, glory and honour of virgins, nun
Asella. Before beginning to write the life of the blessed Hilarion,
I invoke the Holy Spirit which dwelt in him, that, as he largely
bestowed virtues on Hilarion, he may give to me speech wherewith to
relate them; so that his deeds may be equalled by my language. For
those who (as Crispus says) "have wrought virtues" are held to have
been worthily praised in proportion to the words in which famous
intellects have been able to extol them. Alexander the Great, the
Macedonian (whom Daniel calls either the brass, or the leopard, or
the he-goat), on coming to the tomb of Achilles, "Happy art thou,
youth," he said, "who hast been blest with a great herald of thy
worth"--meaning Homer. But I have to tell the conversation and life
of such and so great a man, that even Homer, were he here, would
either envy my matter, or succumb under it.

For although St. Epiphanius, bishop of Salamina in Cyprus, who had
much intercourse with Hilarion, has written his praise in a short
epistle, which is commonly read, yet it is one thing to praise the
dead in general phrases, another to relate his special virtues. We
therefore set to work rather to his advantage than to his injury;
and despise those evil-speakers who lately carped at Paul, and will
perhaps now carp at my Hilarion, unjustly blaming the former for his
solitary life, and the latter for his intercourse with men; in order
that the one, who was never seen, may be supposed not to have
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