Sethos: History or Life Taken from the Private Monuments of Ancient Egypt

P R E F A C E.

ture, whether advantageous or merely favorable, of the weaknesses or disorders of love. But an even more important fruit In this context, "fruit" refers to the beneficial result or moral outcome of reading. of good works of fiction will be to disabuse men of false heroism. Bloody ambition or implacable vengeance, celebrated by so many orators and poets under the name of valor, will be stripped of the luster with which men have sought to clothe them; and we will soon regard as false beauties of eloquence or poetry anything that has served to highlight false virtues.

    This happy effect already seems to have spread into every mind. The devastation of peoples no longer appears to be—at least among civilized nations The original term "Nations policées" refers to societies governed by laws, refined manners, and social order, as opposed to "barbaric" states.—an object of emulation. Praises for conquests and ravages no longer enter into the education of child princes; and good poets no longer boast of them for playing only with weapons. I have no reason to [re-]