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made a small kingdom , which his father left him , great , through hia own bravery , and by his great talents . *' ' " How did he make his little -kin ^ dpm largq ? " said John . ' " By conquering the neighbouring' countries by means of his large army , " said his sister ; * ' wherever Alexander went , he shed torre , tits
of blood , till the people submitted and called him king . " * " Then I do not like him at all /* said ^ Tohn : " he was very wicked indeed ; he should have been called Alexander the Cruel . " t i < war is a cruel business , certainly , " said Hector ; ' * but I suppose Alexander was not worse than other heroes , as they are called . '
' " I do not care about heroes , " said John ; " I think good people are those who do good , and the best people , those who constantly try to do good , and who are never ill-natured ; and as for those whose Jives have been spent in making * others unhappy , you may call them great if you will , but then , I say , great means bad . ' ' " I quite agree with you , John , " said Emma . * Mrs . O'Brien took down a book , and gave it to Hector , saying , " Do you and John read this , coolly and quietly ; I think you will rind
something to admire in Alexander : in his youth there was a promise of excellence , and he pursued , with the greatest zeal , what he thought the path to glory . You remember , Hector , what you have read , in the History of Greece * of the cruel wars between the Persians and the Greeks , many years before the time of Alexander , in which the Greeks showed the greatest bravery in defending their wives and children , and homes . The consequence of these destructive invasions was , that the Greeks hated the Persians ; and Alexander was educated in the belief that great talents are displayed to most advantage in war , and that
conquest is glorious , even if unprovoked . Do you remember the fable of the wolf and the lamb , in which the wolf is represented as accusing the poor lamb of troubling the waters at which he drinks , and then of slandering his reputation ^ and when the lamb proves his innocence , the wolf says , ' then it was your father or your grandfather who did it ;* and devours the poor animal on that pretence ? The reasoning of conquerors , in the time of Alexander , was not better than that of the wolf . Now go and read , and when you come to anything which you like or dislike particularly , come and tell me . " 4
The two boys withdrew to a recess , while Mrs . O'Brien and Emma continued at work . * " You see , John , " exclaimed Hector , " Alexander was fond of reading when he was young ; and when the ambassadors from Persia saw him in his father ' s court , they observed that Jie asked them no foolish questions about things of no consequence , but sensible questions about the government and state of Persia ; so that the ambassadors
said among themselves , ' our young prince , Artaxerxes , ip richy but Alexander is great . * And I like him for this , very much , —that though he was so fond of everything which was elegant or useful , he despise 4 those who spent all their time in ljttle tricks which are of no use . It i * said , a man once exhibited his sldll at the court in thrpwing peas through the eye of a kind of large needle , and what do you think Alexander gave him as a reward ?—a ' basket of peas . ' ' * <* I like that , " said John ; " go silly a game 4 id not deserve a better present . "'—j ) $ > . 71— 75 . '
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850 Critical Notices . — T&lm mid Conversations .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1832, page 850, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1826/page/58/
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