Stories for Pleasure and Edification

of purchased vices.

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Let them boast of their deeds;
someday a day will come to erase
the names of these murderers
from the temple of

; original: "Gedächtnis." In 18th-century German literature, the "Temple of Remembrance" or "Memory" was a common metaphor for the historical record and the judgment of posterity. in their place, humanity will write more enduring names, names — of love and of peace. The sweet name of the fatherland no longer resounds in our groves, those happy times have vanished, since the specter of war covered the earth with human blood, and kings soared to conquests over heaps of their citizens’ shattered skulls. In these times, no Codrus Codrus was a legendary King of Athens who, according to myth, sacrificed his life to ensure his city's victory, embodying the ultimate selfless patriot. remained, and Lisbons A reference to the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755, which killed tens of thousands. The author uses it here as a symbol of mass death and catastrophe. plunged into abysses, without a Curtius Marcus Curtius was a Roman hero who sacrificed himself by leaping into a chasm in the Forum to save the Republic. The author laments that modern tragedies lack such noble self-sacrifice. being found among this multitude of victims. O Nature! How you are desecrated!! How your power is misunderstood! When will your bright call lead man back to his duties, when will one read, marked with fire, human duty in the heart, written by the hand of love? —