Jacob Abbott

“ Men unmarried are, in the mass, proverbially ungovernable. Nothing is so effectual in keeping a citizen away from scenes of tumult and riot as a wife and children at home. The fearful violence of the riots and insurrections of which the city of Paris has so often been the scene, is explained, in a great degree, by the circumstance that so immense a proportion of the population are unmarried. They have no homes, and no defenseless wives and children to fear for, and so they fear nothing, but give themselves up, in times of public excitement, to the wildest impulses of passion. ”

“ Æneas saw at a glance that Creusa's earthly sorrows and sufferings were ended forever.
Her predictions.
Her farewell to her husband.
At first he was shocked and terrified at the spectacle. Creusa, however, endeavored to calm and quiet him by soothing words. "My dearest husband," said she, "do not give way thus to anxiety and grief. The events which have befallen us, have not come by chance. They are all ordered by an overruling providence that is omnipotent and divine. ”

“ Shall our commonwealth be governed by one man? Or shall we select a certain number of the wisest and bravest of the citizens, and commit the administration of public affairs to them? Or, in the third place, shall we commit the management of the government to the control of the people at large? Each of these three forms has its advantages, and each is attended with its own peculiar dangers. You are to choose between them. Only when the decision is once made, let us all unite in maintaining the government which shall be established, whatever its form may be."
Romulus himself made king. ”

“ The announcing of these tidings filled Æneas and those who had joined him with a species of phrensy. They resolved to press forward into the combat, and there, if they must perish themselves, to carry down as many as possible of their enemies with them to destruction. They pressed on, therefore, through the gloomy streets, guiding their way toward the scene of action by the glare of the fires upon the sky, and by the sounds of the distant tumult and din. ”

“ A crowd of peasants and shepherds were seen coming from the mountains, with much excitement, and loud shouts and outcries, bringing with them a captive Greek whom they had secured and bound. As the peasants came up with their prisoner, the Trojans gathered eagerly round them, full of excitement and threats of violence, all thirsting, apparently, for their victim's blood. ”

“ It might seem, at first view, that a symbolical mode of writing must be more simple in its character than the system now in use, inasmuch as by that plan each idea or object would be expressed by one character alone, whereas, by our mode of writing, several characters, sometimes as many as eight or ten, are required to express a word, which word, after all, represents only one single object or idea. ”

“ The Sabines could not bring themselves to submit to so humiliating an alternative as to withdraw from Rome and leave their daughters and sisters in the captors' hands, after all the grand preparations which they had made for retaking them. And on the other hand the Romans could not take those, who, whatever had been their previous history, were now living happily as wives and mothers, each in her own house in the city, and give them up to an army of invaders, demanding them with threats and violence, without deep dishonor. ”

“ Pantheus in reply explained to him in hurried and broken words, that armed men, treacherously concealed within the wooden horse, had issued forth from their concealment, and had opened the gates of the city, and let the whole horde of their ferocious and desperate enemies in; that the sentinels and guards who had been stationed at the gates had been killed; and that the Greek troops had full possession of the city, and were barricading the streets and setting fire to the buildings on every side. "All is lost," said he, "our cause is ruined, and Troy is no more." ”

“ Then there was nothing whatever to mark any superiority of one over the other. If they had been of different ages, the younger could have yielded to the elder, in some degree, without wounding his pride. If one had been more prominent than the other in effecting the revolution by which Amulius was dethroned, or if there had been a native difference of temperament or character to mark a distinction, or if either had been designated by Numitor, or selected by popular choice, for the command,—all might have been well. ”

“ Acron, on the other hand, was a war-worn veteran, rugged, hardy, and stern; and the throngs of martial spectators that surrounded the field, when they saw the combatants as they came forward [Pg 273] to engage, anticipated a very unequal contest. Romulus was nevertheless victorious. As he went into the battle, he made a vow to Jupiter, that if he conquered his foe, he would ascribe to the god all the glory of the victory, and he would set up the arms and spoils of Acron at Rome, as a trophy sacred to Jupiter, in honor of the divine aid through which the conquest should be achieved. ”

“ At what time and in what manner the transition was made among the ancient nations from the symbolic to the phonetic mode of writing, is not now known. When in the flourishing periods of the Grecian and Roman states, learned men explored the literary records of the various nations of the East, writings were found in all, which were expressed in phonetic characters, and the alphabets of these characters were found to be so analogous to each other, in the names and order, and in some respects in the forms, of the letters, as to indicate strongly something like community of origin. ”

“ They were of course in a state of great uncertainty and suspense in respect to the fate which awaited the captives, and were soon eagerly engaged in forming and discussing all possible plans for rescuing and recovering them. Thus the night was passed in agitation and excitement, both within and without the city,—the excitement of terror and distress, great perhaps, though subsiding on the part of the captives, and of resentment and rage which grew deeper and more extended every hour, on the part of their countrymen. ”

“ The same Italy and Greece were there then as now. There were the same blue and beautiful seas, the same mountains, the same picturesque and enchanting shores, the same smiling valleys, and the same serene and genial sky. The level lands were tilled industriously by a rural population corresponding [Pg 16] in all essential points of character with the peasantry of modern times; and shepherds and herdsmen, then as now, hunted the wild beasts, and watched their flocks and herds on the declivities of the mountains. ”