So unexpected was the
movement, so painfully-impressed the vindictive contact, that I should
have instinctively seized the offensively-directed object and
contemptuously hurled it back again, if the consequence of the blow
had not deprived my mind of all retaliatory ambitions. In this
emergency was manifested a magnanimous act worthy of the incense of a
poem, for a person standing immediately by, seeing how this one was
balanced in his emotions, picked up the missile, and although one of
the foremost of the opposing band, very obligingly flung it back at
the assailant. Even an outcast would not have passed this without a
suitable tribute, and turning to him, I was remarking appreciatively
that men were not divided by seas and wooden barriers, but by the
unchecked and conflicting lusts of the mind, when the unclean and
weed-nurtured traitor twenty paces distant, taking a degraded
advantage from this person's attitude, again propelled his weapon with
an even more concentrated perfidy than before. At this new outrage
every brown cricket shrank from the attitude of alert vigour which
hitherto he had maintained, and as though to disassociate themselves
from the stain of complicity all crossed over and took up new
positions.
Up to this point, majestic head, in order to represent the adventure
in its proper sequence, it has been advisable to present the details
as they arose before the eyes of a reliable and dispassionate gazer.
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