Talbot Mundy

Name: The Falling Star — Chapter 11
Author: Talbot Mundy

The Falling Star — Chapter 11 (1926)

Summary

“The Falling Star — Chapter 11”, published in 1926, is a work by Talbot Mundy. It explores elements such as Pertinax, Sextus and Galen.

Quotes from The Falling Star — Chapter 11 (Talbot Mundy)

Talbot Mundy, The Falling Star — Chapter 11 (1926)

“ For herself she does not tremble. She has ten times Pertinax’ ability to rule. If Marcia were a man she should be emperor! Our Pertinax is hesitating between inertia and doubt and dread of Cornificia’s ambition for him; between admiration of his own wife and contempt for her; between the subtleties of auguries and common sense; between trust and mistrust of us all, including Marcia and you and me; between the easy dignity of being governor of Rome and the uneasy palace-slavery of being Cæsar ”

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Source: Wikisource

Talbot Mundy, The Falling Star — Chapter 11 (1926)

“ He stopped and blinked again at Sextus, waiting for an answer.
“You are worth preserving, Galen.”
“I dispute that. I am sentimental, which is idiocy in a man of my age. But I will not kill him who is superior to any man in Rome.”
“Idiocy? You? And you admire that monster?”
“As a monster, yes. He is at least whole-hearted. As a monster he lacks neither strength of will nor sinew nor good looks; he is magnificent; he has the fear, the frenzy and the resolution of a splendid animal. We have only cowardice, the unenthusiasm and the indecision of base men. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Talbot Mundy, The Falling Star — Chapter 11 (1926)

“ Galen answered. “If Rome needed no more than philosophy and grammar, better make me Cæsar! I was mixing my philosophy with surgery and medicine while Pertinax was sucking at his mother’s breast in a Ligurian hut. Rome, my son, is sick of too much mixed philosophy. She needs a man of iron—a riser to occasion—a cutter of Gordian knots, precisely as a sick man needs a surgeon. The senate will vote, as you say, at the prætorian guard’s dictation. You have been clever, my Sextus, with your stirring of faction against faction. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Talbot Mundy, The Falling Star — Chapter 11 (1926)

“ You are like me, not born to the purple; when a sparrow dies, however diligently he has labored in the dirt, no meteors announce his fall. No, not Maternus, the outlaw, to say nothing of Sextus, the legally dead man, can command such notice from the sky. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Talbot Mundy, The Falling Star — Chapter 11 (1926)

“ Last night I saw a falling star—a meteor that blazed out of the night and vanished.”
“I, too,” said Sextus. “All Rome saw it. The cheap sorcerers are doing a fine trade. They declare it portends evil.”
“Evil— but for whom?” Old Galen poured the powder he had scraped into a dish and blinked at him. “Affiliations in the realm of substance are confined to like ingredients. That law is universal. Like seeks like, begetting its own like. As for instance, sickness flows in channels of unwholesomeness, like water seeping through a marsh. Evil? ”

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Source: Wikisource

Talbot Mundy, The Falling Star — Chapter 11 (1926)

“ You know I have been whole-hearted in the cause of Pertinax. Is it right, in a crisis, to put me off with subtleties?”
“Life is subtle. So is virtue. So is this stuff,” Galen answered, poking at the mixture with a bronze spoon. “Every man must choose his own way in a crisis. Some one’s star has fallen. Commodus’? I think not. That star blazed out of obscurity, and Commodus is not obscure. Mine? I am unimportant; I shall make no splendor in the heavens when my hour comes. Marcia’s? ”

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Source: Wikisource

Talbot Mundy, The Falling Star — Chapter 11 (1926)

“ How will that affect Pertinax, except to make him emperor?”
“Nothing will make him emperor unless he makes himself,” said Galen. “You will know tonight. We lack a hero, Sextus. All conspirators resemble rats that gnaw and run, until one rat at last discovers himself Cæsar of the herd by accident. Caius Julius Cæsar was a hero. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Talbot Mundy, The Falling Star — Chapter 11 (1926)

“ There were many kinds of skulls of animals and men on brackets fastened to the wall, and there were jars containing dead things soaked in spirit. Some of the jars were enormous, having once held olive oil. ”

Talbot Mundy

Summary

Quotes from The Falling Star — Chapter 11 (Talbot Mundy)

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