What A Fine
Subject This Would Make For A Ballad In The Style Of Buerger To Suppose That
On A
Particular night in the year, at the midnight hour when mortals in
slumbers are bound, the bones all descending from
The walls where they are
arranged, forming themselves into bodies, clapping on their heads and
dancing a skeleton dance round the Ghost of Attila! The people of Cologne,
in the time of the ecclesiastical Electorate, had the reputation of being
extremely superstitious, and no doubt there were many who implicitly
believe this pious tale; indeed, who could refuse their assent to its
authenticity, on beholding the proof positive in the sculls and bones?
I recollect that in the History of the Compere Mathiew[21] the Pere Jean
rates mightily the natives of Cologne for their bigotry and superstition
and for the bad reception they gave to him and to his philosophy. That
people are happier from a blind belief, as some pretend, appears to me
extremely problematical. For my part, under no circumstances can I think
bliss to consist in ignorance; nor have I felt any particular discomfort in
having learned at a very early age to put under my feet, as Lucretius
expresses it, the strepitum Acherontis avari. On the contrary, it has
made me a perfect cosmopolitan, extinguished all absurd national and
religious prejudices, and rendered me at home wherever I travel; and I meet
the Catholic, the Lutheran, the Moslem, the Jew, the Hindou and the Guebre
as a brother.
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