One always tends to overpraise a long book because one has got through it.

If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friends, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country. Such a choice may scandalize the modern reader, and he may stretch out his hand to the telephone at once and ring up the police. It would not have shocked Dante though. Dante places Brutus and Cassius in the lowest circles of Hell because they had chosen their friend Julius Caesar rather than their country Rome. Show less «