Blavatsky H.P. - Miscellaneous Notes (22): Difference between revisions

The ancestors of “Don Basilio,” ''Rosina’s'' music teacher, have a bloody record, which oceans of witty jokes can {{Page aside|33}}hardly obliterate.<ref>{{HPB-CW-comment|[This is apparently a reference to “Basil” or “Basile,” and “Don Bazile,” in Beaumarchais' comedies, ''Le Barbier de Séville and Le Mariage de Figaro''. In the former, Rosina is a Countess, and in the latter she is a young girl, the ward of don Bartolo. Don Bazile taught her singing in both plays. He is the personification of a calumniating, niggardly bigot, and a clerical humbug dealing largely in calumny and slander.–''Compiler''.]}}</ref> Cruelty is the child of fanaticism, and history is full of examples of the children of martyrs of one kind or another having become oppressors and tyrants. Nay, the very martyrs of a majority themselves, have often been known to turn around when the smart of their own sufferings had been forgotten in the flush of subsequent triumph, and to bully, wrong, or torture a new generation of heterodox. Of all cruel bigots, the Spanish Catholics have, perhaps, earned the most shameful reputation. Their savagery towards the Jews and heretics in Spain, and the wild Indians of their new-found Americas, makes a dark blot upon the history of the race.