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Untitled Article
which will violate truth , rather than incur the reproach of boasting , which meaner-minded men may cast on him . Even thus it is with all truly noble-minded men . Self they think not of till they are reminded by unjust attack , and then they
repel it less from the love of self than from the love of truth . How his chest swells , how his stature seems to enlarge , how deep is the tone of his voice , yet how simple his words , as all true words are , while he replies to the question !—
' Mine own desert . ' The fuller ' s companion seems half thunderstruck , and scarce able to reply to the words , whose truth he fully recognises , and cannot gainsay . He feels his own utter insignificance of mind when compared with the man he had intended to catechise , and he can but reiterate his words ,
Your own desert I The phrase sounds to Coriolanus as an implied doubt of the truth of his words . Honouring truth , and knowing himself to be incapable of falsifying it , his contempt of the questioner breaks forth in his answer :
Aye , not mine own desire . ' The fuller stirs at this , perhaps not quite comprehending the words of Coriolanus ; and referring the want of 'desire' rather to the consulship than to the begging for it in ' the napless vesture of humility / he replies , with somethin g of wonder ,
How ! not your own desire T At this the impatience of Coriolanus is still further incensed , and his scorn is stronger hi its expression . He wishes to repudiate all chance of the suspicion of meanness , and forgets that others , as well as himself , have feelings , while he answers , 4 , sir ; 'Twas never my desire yet ,
To trouble the poor with begging . ' This phrase must not be construed in the ordinary sense of the word ' poor . ' It was the poor in spirit to whom he alluded ; and poor , indeed , were they who could condemn a high-minded man to so unworthy a task as Coriolanus felt his to be , —deeming- that , in the mere emblem of power , power itself resided ; but the fuller , at any rate , replies to the purpose :
You must think , if we give you any tiling , We hope to gain by you . ' It is ever thus . No human being gives any thing to another human being without hoping to gam something in return . One gives sympathy , and expects sympathy in return , or the sympathy
Untitled Article
196 ' Coriolanus no Aristocrat
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1834, page 196, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2631/page/36/
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