(Found Poem in Michel de Montainge’s “Of Cruelty” translated by George B. Ives)
Can it be true that, to be really good, we must needs be so by an occult, natural and universal disposition, without law, without reason, without example? What there is in me of good I owe to the chance of my birth. I derive it neither from law, nor from precept, nor from any other teaching. I very tenderly compassionate the afflictions of another. There is nothing that draws forth my tears, save tears.