It was one lesson he never forgot. You don't sit back when you or a loved one is being assaulted. And you don't act like the goverment with their "proportional responses" and all that nonsense. If someone hurts you,mercy and pity must be put aside,You eliminate the enemy. You scorch the earth.
It is commonly the personal character of a writer which gives him his public significance. It is not imparted by his genius. Napoleon said of Corneille, "Were he living I would make him a king;" but he did not read him. He read Racine, yet he said nothing of the kind of Racine.