Читать книгу Lord William Beresford, V.C., Some Memories of a Famous Sportsman, Soldier and Wit онлайн

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There is nothing snobbish or vulgar in being proud of our ancestry, though it may seem so to those who are unacquainted with their own. Even savages have pride of race, and it has been so since the days of Virgil, and before that. Let us hope it will always be so. It is our birthright, which is well, for it helps men and women to keep straight, sorry to be the first to lower the standard or bring it into disrepute.

Look at the pride of race among the different tribes in the East how strong it is, their castes are profound and deep religions to them, their inherited pride of race, for which they willingly die, rather than suffer any real or imaginary indignity.

This instinct is still strongly marked in our present-day Gypsies, who are exceedingly exclusive and proud of their race, and they will tell with pride, if you know them well enough, that the reason they are, and will be ever more, accursed and hunted from place to place, is because a Gypsy forged the nails used in the Crucifixion.