show you another mother, who sees the quartering of her child. Did you remain unmoved at the martyrdom of that man?—I increase the number a hundredfold by torturing ninety-nine at his side. Are you hardened enough not to shudder when seeing this soldier, who, in the besieged fortification, devours his left arm because of hunger. . . . ?—
Epicure! I propose you give order, “Right and left wheel, form circle, left files eat left arms of right files. . . march!”
Yes, in this manner, artificial horrors become folly. . . which en passant I would fain prove.
And yet we would be reduced to this if we condemned too soon an author who wished to prepare you for his catastrophe without having recourse to these screaming[1] colours. But the danger of the other extreme is still greater. You despise the efforts of coarse literature, which thinks it must take your feelings by storm with such rough weapons; but if the author falls into the other extreme, if he sins by too much deviation from the principal matter, by too much pencilling, then your anger is still greater, and quite right; for then he has bored you, and that is unpardonable.
If we walk together and you stray every moment from the road, and call me into the underwood only with the intention to prolong the walk, I think this disagree-
- ↑ This is a literal rendering of the word used by the author.
