Excerpt from Little Journeys: To the Homes of Eminent Orators But they have their reward. Their names are not writ in water, rather are they traced in blood on history's page. We know them, while the ensconced smug and successful have sunk into oblivion; and if now and then a name like that of Pilate or Caiphas or Judas comes to us, it is only because fate has linked the man to his victim, like unto that Roman soldier who thrust his spear into the side of the Unselfish Man. (i In the qualities that mark the four chief orators of the French Revolution, there is much alloy - much that seems like clay. Each had undergone an apprentice ship to Fate - each had been preparing for his work; and in this preparation who shall say what lessons could have been omitted and what not! Explosions require time to prepare - revolutions, political and domestic, are a long time getting ready. Orators, like artists, must go as did Dante, down into the nether regions and get a glimpse of hell. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.