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Dr. Charlotte Krause : Her Life & Literature
It appears that of all the wealth that benign Earth, the best of mothers, provides, nothing pleases thee unless thou canst inflict dreary wounds with cruel teeth, and imitate the Cyclops and their jaws. Nor dost thou seem able to appease the cravings of the greedy and degenerate stomach, unless thou killest another creature !
'But in that remote age which we are accustomed to call the Golden one everybody was content with the fruit of trees, and with such vegetables as the soil produces. Nobody would pollute his lips by the touch of animal blood. At that time, birds moved safely in the air, fearlessly did the hare gambol in the midst of the meadow, nor did the fish fall a victim to the angler's hook, in his easy confidence. In short there was no persecution, no fear of being tricked into ruin, and all the creatures were at peace.
'But since some unfortunate originator, whosoever he was, began to begrudge the lions their meals, and allowed animal food to enter his body, the way to atrocity has been open. It is possible that first of all it was the blood of ravenous beasts only that stained and heated the killing knife. There, man ought to have stopped. For in their case, we may well exculpate ourselves by asserting with selfcomplacence that we had to put to death those brutes, because they had attempted our lives. But admitted that they had been put to death justly, nothing can justify our eating them.
'Further crime has arisen therefrom. The boar is believed to have been the first victim deserving death, because with his protruding snout, he uprooted the seeds and spoilt the harvest of the year. Then the goat is said to have been slaughtered at the altar of the avening Bacchus, because it had browsed the vines. Both of them were ruined by their offence. What sin however did the sheep commit, those peaceful creatures, born to protect man, that carry nectar in their full udders, and offer their wool as soft coverings, thus being more useful by their life than death? What offence did the cattle commit, those creatures without deceit and malice, creatures so innocent, so harmless, born only to suffer hardships ?
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