But I cannot stop here. Influenced by the inborn feelings
of my nature, and not being illuminated by a single ray of this
new-sprung modern light, I confess to you, Sir, that the exalted
rank of the persons suffering, and particularly the sex, the beauty,
and the amiable qualities of the descendant of so many kings and
emperors, with the tender age of royal infants, insensible only
through infancy and innocence of the cruel outrages to which their
parents were exposed, instead of being a subject of exultation, adds
not a little to any sensibility on that most melancholy occasion.
I hear that the august person who was the principal object of
our preacher's triumph, though he supported himself, felt much on that
shameful occasion. As a man, it became him to feel for his wife and
his children, and the faithful guards of his person that were
massacred in cold blood about him; as a prince, it became him to
feel for the strange and frightful transformation of his civilized
subjects, and to be more grieved for them than solicitous for himself.
It derogates little from his fortitude, while it adds infinitely to
the honor of his humanity. I am very sorry to say it, very sorry
indeed, that such personages are in a situation in which it is not
unbecoming in us to praise the virtues of the great.
I hear, and I rejoice to hear, that the great lady, the other
object of the triumph, has borne that day (one is interested that
beings made for suffering should suffer well), and that she bears
all the succeeding days, that she bears the imprisonment of her
husband, and her own captivity, and the exile of her friends, and
the insulting adulation of addresses, and the whole weight of her
accumulated wrongs, with a serene patience, in a manner suited to
her rank and race, and becoming the offspring of a sovereign
distinguished for her piety and her courage; that, like her, she has
lofty sentiments; that she feels with the dignity of a Roman matron;
that in the last extremity she will save herself from the last
disgrace; and that, if she must fall, she will fall by no ignoble
hand.
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