[433]: Paradise Regained.
[434]: Voyez aussi les sonnets italiens et leur sentiment si religieux.
[435]: Apology for Smectymnus.
[436]: Above them all, (I) preferred the two famous renowners of Beatrice and Laura, who never write but honour of them to whom they devote their verse, displaying sublime and pure thoughts without transgression. And long it was not after, that I was confirmed in this opinion that he who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things ought himself to be a true poem; that is a composition and pattern of the best and honourablest things, not presuming to sing high praises of heroic men or famous cities, unless he have in himself the experience and practice of all that which is praiseworthy. (Apology for Smectymnus.)
These reasonings, together with a certain niceness of nature, an honest haughtiness and self-esteem.... kept me still above those low descents of mind, beneath which he must deject and plunge himself that can agree to saleable and unlawful prostitution. (Ibid.)
[437]: I argued to myself that, if unchastity in a woman, whom St. Paul terms the glory of man, be such a scandal and dishonour, then certainly in a man, who is both the image and glory of God, it must, though commonly not so thought, be much more deflouring and dishonourable. (Ibid.)
Only this my mind gave me that every free and gentle spirit, without that oath, ought to be born a knight. (Ibid.)
[438]: Voyez passim son Traité du Divorce, qui est transparent.
[439]: «Quand même je n'aurais eu qu'une faible teinture du christianisme, une certaine réserve naturelle d'humeur et la discipline morale enseignée par la plus noble philosophie eussent suffi pour m'inspirer le dédain des incontinences.» (Apologie pour Smectymnus.)
[440]: Mot de Jean-Paul Richter. Voir un excellent article sur Milton, National Review, July, 1859.