The cottage of my protectors had been the only school in which I had studied human nature, but this book developed new and mightier scenes of action.

I read of men concerned in public affairs, governing or massacring their species.

I felt the greatest ardour for virtue rise within me, and abhorrence for vice, as far as I understood the signification of those terms, relative as they were, as I applied them, to pleasure and pain alone.

Induced by these feelings, I was of course led to admire peaceable lawgivers, Numa, Solon, and Lycurgus, in preference to Romulus and Theseus.

The patriarchal lives of my protectors caused these impressions to take a firm hold on my mind; perhaps, if my first introduction to humanity had been made by a young soldier, burning for glory and slaughter, I should have been imbued with different sensations.
"But Paradise Lost excited different and far deeper emotions.