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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: pickle-sellers and little children. Remember all the injustice of your
chiefs, the campings in the snow, the marchings in the sun, the
tyrannies of discipline, and the everlasting menace of the cross! And
after all this misery they have given you a necklace of honour, as
they hang a girdle of bells round the breast of an ass to deafen it on
its journey, and prevent it from feeling fatigue. A man like you,
braver than Pyrrhus! If only you had wished it! Ah! how happy will you
be in large cool halls, with the sound of lyres, lying on flowers,
with women and buffoons! Do not tell me that the enterprise is
impossible. Have not the Mercenaries already possessed Rhegium and
other fortified places in Italy? Who is to prevent you? Hamilcar is
Salammbo |
