"Eric Flint - [GB 01] - Forward The Mage" - читать интересную книгу автора (Flint Eric)

Agent of Vega & Other Stories


By Keith Laumer, edited by Eric Flint:
Retief!
Odyssey


Wisely hath it been written that those great upheavals which so enflame the passions of society that they
excite the masses to rebellion and enmity against all lawful custom and sovereignty, wherefore the
common herd is led to commit many profane mischiefs against the peace, including both mad foreign
adventures and rude civil revolts, may not be comprehended as mere brutish conflicts between vast
opposed powers, each bent on conquering for itself the Helm of State. Rather, we say that they are
compounded of many societal atoms, indeed, of a multitude of small dramas, mere chance encounters,
perhaps, 'twixt private persons of divers degrees and sorts.

Vulgar history will, of course, take no heed of these events, for they will appear to those witless
sycophants of Clio's muse to be so contemptible, prosaic and inglorious, compared to the deeds of kings,
ministers, generals, revolutionists and agitators, to the discordant flux of the classes and the masses, that
they will be blinded to their import and, forsooth, will roundly and churlishly despise them. Yet these
small episodes, we say, are the true stuff of History. For, though men go their way quietly in tranquil
times, yet, in such epochs when storm clouds gather o'er the State and insurrectionary thoughts steal into
the minds of the pauper classes, then may the separate lives of men be severally fused as if by a lightning
bolt of social hatred, wherein all of society is transformed, and, like the wounded Leviathan, vents its
unleashed fury at mute and fear-filled Nature.

Of course, we find in the literature other theories, chiefly opposed to our own. These, however, we may
dismiss, for they are all of them perniciously false and utterly repugnant to the human intellect in every
respect.



TheCollegeofHistorians
UniversityofOzarae(inExile)




PRELUDE.
In Which We Introduce the Gentle Reader to Our Tale Through a Most Cunning Usage of the Ancient
Narrative Device of The Plunge Direct Into the Turbulence of the Times. Taken From the Autobiography
of the Notorious Scapegrace, Benvenuti Sfondrati-Piccolomini.



Autobiography of Benvenuti Sfondrati-Piccolomini,