I will add but one remark on the character of the truest heroine that the world has ever seen.
If any person can be found in the present age who would join in the scoffs of Voltaire against the Maid of Orleans and the Heavenly Voices by which she believed herself inspired, let him read the life of the wisest and best man that the heathen nations produced. Let him read of the Heavenly Voice, by which Socrates believed himself to be constantly attended; which cautioned him on his way from the field of battle at Delium, and which from his boyhood to the time of his death visited him with unearthly warnings.[1] Let the modern reader reflect upon this; and then, unless he is prepared to term Socrates either fool or impostor, let him not dare to deride or vilify Joan of Arc.
- ↑ See Cicero, de Divinatione, lib. i, sec. 41; and see the words of Socrates himself, in Plato, Apol. Soc. "Ὄτι μοι δειόν τι και δαιμόνιον γίγνεται. Έμοί δε τοντ έστιν έκ παιδός άρξάμενον, φωνή τις γεγνομένη, κ. τ. λ.
