Читать книгу Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands (Vol.1&2). Letters & Travel Sketches from Europe онлайн

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The ivy on the walls now displays a trunk in some places as large as a man's body. In the days of old Archibald the Grim, I suppose that ivy was a little, weak twig, which, if he ever noticed, he must have thought the feeblest and slightest of all things; yet Archibald has gone back to dust, and the ivy is still growing on. Such force is there in gentle things.

I have often been dissatisfied with the admiration, which a poetic education has woven into my nature, for chivalry and feudalism; but, on a closer examination, I am convinced that there is a real and proper foundation for it, and that, rightly understood, this poetic admiration is not inconsistent with the spirit of Christ.

For, let us consider what it is we admire in these Douglases, for instance, who, as represented by Scott, are perhaps as good exponents of the idea as any. Was it their hardness, their cruelty, their hastiness to take offence, their fondness for blood and murder? All these, by and of themselves, are simply disgusting. What, then, do we admire? Their courage, their fortitude, their scorn of lying and dissimulation, their high sense of personal honor, which led them to feel themselves the protectors of the weak, and to disdain to take advantage of unequal odds against an enemy. If we read the book of Isaiah, we shall see that some of the most striking representations of God appeal to the very same principles of our nature.