Henry William Herbert

“ But, fear not, Lucia. Fear not, dearest girl, you shall not die, believe—"
"I do not fear, I desire it," said the dying girl, who was growing weaker and fainter every moment. "To a life, and a love like mine, both guilty, both unhappy, death is a refuge, not a terror; and if there be, as you believe, who are so wise and virtuous, a place beyond the grave, where souls parted here on earth, may meet and dwell in serene and tranquil bliss, perhaps, I say, perhaps, Julia, this death may compensate that life—this blood may wash away the sin, the shame, the pollution." ”

“ Tell thou to Arvina how these things have fallen out, and whither they have led her; and, above all, that one is on her traces who will die or save her."
"Ha! ha!" laughed Aulus savagely in the glee of his vengeful triumph, "Thou wilt die, but not save her. I am avenged, already—avenged in Julia's ruin!"
"Wretch!" exclaimed his kinsman, indignant and disgusted—"almost it shames me that my name is Fulvius! Fearful, however, is the punishment that overhangs thee! think on that, Aulus! and if shame fetter not thy tongue, at least let terror freeze it." ”

“ To believe that the Gods care nothing for the good or evil—ye Gods!" she interrupted herself suddenly, almost with a shriek. "What is this? a slave riding, as if for life, on a foaming horse, from the cityward. Oh! my prophetic soul, Hortensia!"
And she turned pale as death, although she remained quite firm and self-possessed.
"It may be nothing, Julia; or it may be good tidings," answered Hortensia, although she was in truth scarce less alarmed, than her daughter, by the unexpected arrival.
"Good tidings travel not so quickly. Beside, what can there be of good, so unexpected? ”

“ This I can promise you, O Conscript Fathers, that there shall be such diligence in us consuls, such valor in the Roman knights, such unanimity in all good citizens, that you shall see, Catiline once departed, all that is secret exposed, all that is dark brought to light, all that is dangerous put down, all that is guilty punished. Under these omens, Catiline, to the eternal welfare of the state, to thine own ruin and destruction, to the perdition of all those who have linked themselves with thee in this league of infamy and parricide, go forth to thine atrocious and sacrilegious warfare! ”

“ If, therefore, thou art not, as I believe indeed thou art, merely mocking me, I pray thee tell me, whither are they conveying her? Where will she soon be?"
"To the camp of Manlius, nigh Fiesolè! In the arms of one Lucius Sergius Catiline—a great admirer of your auburn-haired, blue-eyed beauties, my Arvina."
The young man, with his eyes gleaming and his face crimsoning with furious rage, made two steps forward, and seizing the burly traitor by the throat, compressed his gullet, as if in an iron vice, and shook him to and fro as easily as if he had been a stripling. ”

“ For what is there, O Catiline, that can delight thee any longer in this city, in which there is not one man, without thy band of desperadoes, who does not fear, not one who does not hate thee?—What brand of domestic turpitude is not burnt in upon thy life? What shame of private bearing clings not to thee, for endless infamy? What scenes of impure lust, what deeds of daring crime, what horrible pollution attaches not to thy whole career?—To what young man, once entangled in the meshes of thy corruption, hast thou not tendered the torch of licentiousness, or the steel of murder? ”

“ Lentulus sat alone in an inner chamber of the house of Publius Lentulus Spintherus, an Ædile at that time. There was, it is true, a guard at the door, and clients under arms in the atrium; but in his own apartment the proud conspirator was still master of himself indeed, soon to be master of Rome, in his own frantic fantasy.
Bright lights were burning in bronze candelabra; rich wines were before him; his own favorite freedman leaned on the back of his ivory arm chair, and jested lightly on the discomfiture of noble Cicero, on the sure triumph of democratic Cæsar. ”

“ I indeed think, with those who have preceded me, that every torture is too small for their atrocity and crime. But it is human nature's trick to remember always that which occurs the last in order. Forgetful of the criminal's guilt, the world dwells ever on the horror of his punishment, if it lean never so little to the side of severity. Well sure am I, that the speech of Decius Silanus, a brave and energetic man, was dictated by his love for the republic—that in a cause so weighty he is moved neither by favor nor resentment. ”

“ It was not, however, in the nature of that man to yield himself up long to any influence, save that of his own passions, and after standing mute for perhaps a minute, during which the flush on his sallow cheek, and the glare of his fiery eye, were blanched and dimmed somewhat, he advanced a step or two toward her, repeating the words,
"I have thee; thou art mine, Julia."
"Thy prisoner, Catiline," she replied quietly—"if you make women prisoners."
"My slave, minion."
"I am free-born, and noble. A patrician of a house as ancient as thine own. ”

“ There are tidings from Rome; which—"
"To Tartarus with thy tidings! Let them tarry!"
[pg 191] "They will not tarry, Catiline," replied the smith, who was as pale as a ghost and almost trembling—"least of all for such painted woman's flesh as this is!"
"Get thee away! It were better, wiser, safer to stand between the Lion and his prey, than between Catiline and Julia."
"Then have it!" shouted the smith. "All is discovered! all undone! Lentulus and Cethegus, Gabinius and Statilius, and Cæparius all dead by the hangman's noose in the Tullianum!" ”

“ Love, hatred, passion, triumph, rage, revenge, ambition, all, all gratified! Ha! ha! Soft, gentle Julia—proud, virtuous one that did despise me, thou shalt writhe for it—from thy soul shalt thou bleed for it! Ha! ha! Arvina—liar! fool! perjurer! but this will wring thee worse than Ixion's wheel, or whips of scorpions!—Ha! ha! Cicero! Cicero!—No! no! Chærea. There are no Gods! no Gods who guard the innocent! no Gods who smile on virtue! no gods! ”

“ If thou deniest, I will prove it. For I see some of those here, here in the Senate, who were with thee. Oh! ye immortal Gods! in what region of the earth do we dwell? in what city do we live? of what republic are we citizens? Here! they are here, in the midst of us, Conscript Fathers, here in this council, the most sacred, the most solemn of the universal world, who are planning the slaughter of myself, the slaughter of you all, planning the ruin of this city, and therein the ruin of the world. I the consul, see these men, and ask their opinions on state matters. ”

“ Hortensia!"
"Wherefore, alas, my Julia?"
"For so will not the warrior rise, who sinks forever, although it may be into a bed of glory! And if the setting of the sun leave all here lustreless and dark and gloomy, although that must arise again to-morrow, what must the setting do of one who shall arise no more for ever; whose light of life was to one heart, what the sunbeam was to the streamlet, but which, unlike that sunbeam, shall never shine on the heart any more, Hortensia." ”

“ While we had many tillers of the ground, and few merchants, we were brave in the field, and just at home!"
"Think you, then, that the spirit of commerce is averse to justice, and bravery, and freedom?"
"No, I do not think it, Arvina, I know it!" answered Fabius Sanga, who, with the truth and candor of a patrician of Rome's olden school, possessed, and that justly, much repute for wisdom and foresight. "All mercantile communities are base communities. Look at Tyre, in old times! Look at Carthage, in our grandfathers' days! at Corinth in our own! Merchants are never patriots! ”

“ There was but one at that banquet, who, although he drank more deeply, rioted more sensually, laughed more loudly, sang more wildly, than any of the guests, was yet as cool amid that terrible scene of excitement, as in the council chamber, as on the battle field.
His sallow face flushed not; his hard clear eye swam not languidly, nor danced with intoxication; his voice quivered not; his pulse was as slow, as even as its wont. That man's frame, like his soul, was of trebly tempered steel.
Had Catiline not been the worst, he had been the greatest of Romans. ”

“ The friends of Cicero and the republic, on the contrary, lay on their oars, in breathless expectation of some new occurrence, which should confirm the public mind, and approve their own conduct; well aware that much time could not elapse before Catiline would be heard of at the head of an army.
In the meantime, the city wore its wonted aspect; men bought and sold, and toiled or sported; and women smiled and sighed, flaunted and wantoned in the streets, as if, a few short days before, they had not been wringing their hands in terror, dissolved in tears, and speechless from dismay. ”

“ Yet not for that had the arch-traitor withdrawn his foot one hair's breadth from his purpose, or paused one moment in his career of crime and ruin.
There is, beyond doubt, a necessity—not as the ancients deemed, supernatural, and the work of fate, but a natural moral necessity—arising from the very quality of crime itself, which spurs the criminal on to new guilt, fresh atrocity.
In the dark path of wickedness there is no halting place; the wretched climber must turn his face for ever upward, for ever onward; if he look backward his fall is inevitable, his doom fixed. ”

“ Next behind them, came Bassus, the veteran father of the dead eagle-bearer; he who had told so sad a tale of patrician cruelty to Fulvius Flaccus, in the forge.
"Why, Bassus, my brave veteran, give me your hand," cried the conspirator, making a forward step to meet him. "For whom vote you to-day, for Murœna and Silanus? Ha?"
"For Catiline and justice!" answered the old man, "justice on him who wronged the Eagle-bearer's child! who sits in the senate even yet, defiled with her pure blood!—the infamous Cornelius!" ”

“ But, as he turned to leave the atrium, nature was too strong for his philosophy, for his pride; and crying out, "My son! my son! He was yet mine own son! mine own Aulus!" and burying his face in his toga, he burst into a paroxysm of loud grief, and threw himself at length on the dead body: father and son victims alike to the inexorable Roman honor! ”

“ When I well know that thou hast already a day promised and appointed whereon to join the camp of Manlius? When I well know that the silver eagle hath been prepared already—the silver eagle which will, I trust, prove ruinous and fatal to thee and all thine host, to which a shrine has been established in thine own house, thy villanies its fitting incense? For how shalt thou endure its absence any longer, thou who wert wont to adore it, setting forth to sacrilege and slaughter, thou who so often hast upraised that impious right hand of thine from its accursed altars to murder citizens of Rome? ”

“ You have had your option too, my Arvina. But I, it seems, can have none, but must wait upon your consul."
"You have the same which you give Julia!" answered Paullus, sternly. "There is your dagger, and your heart here!" he added, laying his hand on the broad breast of the infamous Patrician.
"True! count its pulses—cooler, I think, and more regular than thine, Paullus. Tush! man! I know a hundred wiser things and pleasanter than dying. But once more, lead on! I will speak no word again till I speak to the consul!" ”

“ Service converted into shame! valor warped into crime! At home poverty, degradation, ruin! Abroad, debt, mockery, disgrace! Proud! proud! By Nemesis! fond girl. I am proud—to be the thing that they have made me, a terror, and a curse to all who call themselves patrician. For daring, remorseless! for brave, cruel! for voluptuous, sensual! for fearless, ruthless! for enterprising, reckless! for ambitious, desperate! for a man, a monster! for a philosopher, an atheist! Ha! ha! ha! ha! I am proud, minion, proud to be that I am—that which thou, Julia, shalt soon find me! ”

“ Thou wilt discharge me from great terror, so soon as a wall shall be interposed between thee and me. Dwell among us thou canst now no longer. I will not endure, I will not suffer, I will not permit it! Great thanks must be rendered to the immortal Gods, and to this Stator Jove, especially, the ancient guardian of this city, that we have escaped so many times already this plague, so foul, so horrible, so fraught with ruin to the republic. Not often is the highest weal of a state jeoparded in the person of a single individual. ”

“ Not so—for never, in this city, have rebels against the commonwealth been suffered to retain the rights of Citizens or Romans! Dost thou shrink from the odium of posterity? If it be so, in truth, thou dost repay great gratitude unto the Roman people, who hath elevated thee, a man known by thine own actions only, commended by no ancestral glory, so rapidly, through all the grades of honor, to this most high authority of consul; if in the fear of any future odium, if in the dread of any present peril, thou dost neglect the safety of the citizens! ”

“ At length one of the mob, bolder than the rest, thrust himself in between the torch bearers and their lord, and meeting the latter face to face, cried out, so that all the crowd might hear,
"Lo! Aulus Fulvius! the violator of Icilia! the friend of the people!"
A loud roar of savage laughter followed; and then, encouraged by the applause of his fellows, the man added,
"Vote for Aulus Fulvius, the friend of the people! vote for good Aulus, and his virtuous friend Catiline!"
The hot blood flashed to the brow of the young noble, at the undisguised scorn of the plebeian's speech. ”

“ At the word Aulus Fulvius leaped on him like a tiger, with his face crimsoning, and his heart almost bursting with fury.
He could not speak for rage, but he seized the man who had uttered those mysterious words by the throat, and brandished a long poniard, extricated in a second's space from the loose sleeve of his tunic, furiously in the air.
As the bright blade flashed in the sunlight, there was a forward rush among the conspirators, who, anxious to avert any casual affray, that might have created a disturbance, would have checked the blow. ”

“ Dear girl, it is impossible."
"I will go forth myself, alone, unaided, I will save him."
"You must not, Julia."
"Who shall prevent me? Who dare to part a betrothed maiden from her true lover,—true, alas! in death! in death!"
"I will," replied Petreius firmly. "You know not the perils of such a night as this. The gaunt wolves from the Appennines; the foul and carrion vultures; the plundering disbanded soldiers; the horrid unsexed women, who roam the field of blood more cruel than the famished wolf, more sordid than the loathsome vulture. ”