A Book of Golden Deeds
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Оглавление
Yonge Charlotte Mary. A Book of Golden Deeds
PREFACE
WHAT IS A GOLDEN DEED?
THE STORIES OF ALCESTIS AND ANTIGONE
THE CUP OF WATER
HOW ONE MAN HAS SAVED A HOST. B.C. 507
THE PASS OF THERMOPYLAE. B.C. 430
THE ROCK OF THE CAPITOL. B.C. 389
THE TWO FRIENDS OF SYRACUSE. B.C. 380 (CIRCA)
THE DEVOTION OF THE DECII. B.C. 339
REGULUS. B.C. 249
THE BRAVE BRETHREN OF JUDAH. B.C. 180
THE CHIEF OF THE ARVERNI. B.C. 52
WITHSTANDING THE MONARCH IN HIS WRATH. A.D. 389
THE LAST FIGHT IN THE COLISEUM. A.D. 404
THE SHEPHERD GIRL OF NANTERRE. A.D. 438
LEO THE SLAVE. A.D. 533
THE BATTLE OF THE BLACKWATER. 991
GUZMAN EL BUENO. 1293
FAITHFUL TILL DEATH. 1308
WHAT IS BETTER THAN SLAYING A DRAGON. 1332
THE KEYS OF CALAIS. 1347
THE BATTLE OF SEMPACH. 1397
THE CONSTANT PRINCE. 1433
THE CARNIVAL OF PERTH. 1435
THE CROWN OF ST. STEPHEN. 1440
GEORGE THE TRILLER. 1455
SIR THOMAS MORE'S DAUGHTER. 1535
UNDER IVAN THE TERRIBLE. 1564
FORT ST. ELMO. 1565
THE VOLUNTARY CONVICT. 1622
THE HOUSEWIVES OF LOWENBURG. 1631
FATHERS AND SONS. 219—1642—1798
THE SOLDIERS IN THE SNOW. 1672
GUNPOWDER PERILS. 1700
HEROES OF THE PLAGUE. 1576—1665—1721
THE SECOND OF SEPTEMBER. 1792
THE VENDEANS. 1793
Отрывок из книги
We all of us enjoy a story of battle and adventure. Some of us delight in the anxiety and excitement with which we watch the various strange predicaments, hairbreadth escapes, and ingenious contrivances that are presented to us; and the mere imaginary dread of the dangers thus depicted, stirs our feelings and makes us feel eager and full of suspense.
This taste, though it is the first step above the dullness that cannot be interested in anything beyond its own immediate world, nor care for what it neither sees, touches, tastes, nor puts to any present use, is still the lowest form that such a liking can take. It may be no better than a love of reading about murders in the newspaper, just for the sake of a sort of startled sensation; and it is a taste that becomes unwholesome when it absolutely delights in dwelling on horrors and cruelties for their own sake; or upon shifty, cunning, dishonest stratagems and devices. To learn to take interest in what is evil is always mischievous.
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And yet perhaps it is one of the most remarkable characteristics of a Golden Deed that the doer of it is certain to feel it merely a duty; 'I have done that which it was my duty to do' is the natural answer of those capable of such actions. They have been constrained to them by duty, or by pity; have never even deemed it possible to act otherwise, and did not once think of themselves in the matter at all.
For the true metal of a Golden Deed is self-devotion. Selfishness is the dross and alloy that gives the unsound ring to many an act that has been called glorious. And, on the other hand, it is not only the valor, which meets a thousand enemies upon the battlefield, or scales the walls in a forlorn hope, that is of true gold. It may be, but often it is a mere greed of fame, fear of shame, or lust of plunder. No, it is the spirit that gives itself for others—the temper that for the sake of religion, of country, of duty, of kindred, nay, of pity even to a stranger, will dare all things, risk all things, endure all things, meet death in one moment, or wear life away in slow, persevering tendance and suffering.
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