Atys

“ At length he said, "Thou hast spoken like a god; but know that not the gods themselves shall turn back Attila from his course, unless he have the justice he has demanded. Thou art reverenced, oh Leo! as one of mighty powers--as one inspired, perhaps, by the God whom thou servest, with eloquence above that of mortals; and willingly will Attila hear thee discourse on the matters of thy high calling, as to whether there be more gods than one; as to the nature of the soul of man; the powers that govern him throughout life, and the fate that awaits him beyond the grave. ”

“ Attila will find it hard to trample on the brother of Paulinus."
"Ay! so he is Paulinus' brother!" cried the Hun; "I do remember now he is his brother: but if thou bearest tidings from Theodosius to thine uncle, tell him to put no faith in the arms of men who know not how to use them; to trust not in those who daily break their promises. Tell him that he who bade you thus speak knows full well Attila the King; and that he will as soon abandon his prey as the hungry vulture. Your guide is gone; but follow me; I will show you the way to Margus." ”

“ The Roman heart was reawakened by the voice that called her to the trial. The sight of Attila, like the fierce sun shining on the dewy grass after a storm, dried up the tears in her eyes; and after that brief pause she replied, "I weep, oh king! because as a woman I am weak; because I am apprehensive of the future; because I am uncertain of the present; because I grieve for the past. Little cause is there to ask any one living why he weeps. Thou wouldst do more wisely wert thou to ask any one in this world why he smiles." ”

“ Thou hast said that thou wilt turn back if I will satisfy thine honour and thy justice. I have offers for thee, which, as a minister of God's word, I declare to be as full and complete satisfaction as ambition itself could demand. Wilt thou hear them now, oh king?"
"No," replied Attila, "I will not. Thou art weary with travel, and hast many years upon thy brow. Attila has kept thee too long already without offering thee bread and rest. This night shalt thou repose in tranquillity and peace. ”

“ For Aetius, alas! the other name of which Ravenna is full, seems no leader likely to preserve the noblest in the old world or the new. He is indeed capable of ruling every one, and capable of understanding everything. To him come ‘the groans of the forsaken Britons’; to him the embassies of the conquering Hun. Living as a hostage three years among the Huns, he knows Attila and his people intimately. Chief minister of the Augusta for seventeen years, he knows the Empire to the core of its corrupt heart. He has conquered the Franks, defended the Empire, and will, it seems, conciliate the Goths. ”

“ In a short space Ajax the Less was foremost, with Ulysses close upon him, close as is the shuttle to the breast of a woman who stands at the loom and weaves. Hard behind him he ran, treading in his steps before the dust could rise from them. And when they were now drawing to the end of the course Ulysses prayed to Athene that she should help him, and Athene heard him, and made his knees and feet right nimble, and even at the very end she caused that Ajax slipped in the filth where certain oxen had been slain, so that his mouth and nostrils were filled with it. ”

“ PASSING now to Attis and Adonis, we may note a few facts which seem to show that these deities of vegetation had also, like other deities of the same class, their animal embodiments. The worshippers of Attis abstained from eating the flesh of swine. This appears to indicate that the pig was regarded as an embodiment of Attis. And the legend that Attis was killed by a boar points in the same direction. For after the examples of the goat Dionysus and the pig Demeter it may almost be laid down as a rule that an animal which is said to have injured a god was originally the god himself. ”

“ First I had better remind you in a few words who, I said Attis is; and what his castration means; and what is symbolised by the ceremonies that occur between the castration and the Hilaria: and what is meant by the rite of purification. Attis then was declared to be an original cause and a god, the direct creator of the material world, who descends to the lowest limits and is checked by the creative motion of the sun so soon as that god reaches the exactly limited circuit of the universe, which is called the equinox because of its effect in equalising night and day. ”

“ Night, their bloody Queen, her fold
Wound on them and struck them through.
Make the bed for Attila!
XXVII.
Earth has got him whom God gave,
Earth may sing, and earth shall smart!
None of earth shall know his grave. [99]
They that dig with Death depart.
Attila, my Attila!
XXVIII.
Thus their prayer was raved and passed:
Passed in peace their red sunset:
Hewn and earthed those men of sweat
Who had housed him in the vast,
Where no mortal might declare,
There lies he—his end was there! ”

“ There is another in the camp who may be better trusted. Dost thou remember, oh mighty Attila, a holy hermit, who dwelt in the mountains two or three days' journey from Margus, and who--"
"But he is dead," interrupted Attila; "he has been dead two years."
"True," replied Valamir; "but near him there dwelt another hermit, less shrewd and wise, perhaps, but, even more than he was, touched with the fire of the gods. Wild, rash, and fearless, he speaks whatever the spirit prompts, and in such a man's interpretation one may trust his confidence. ”

“ Gold is refined of its adhering dross by fire. Otis still lives, and every day he warns some one, not only of the folly and sin, but the danger, of visiting that class of houses, if only from curiosity. They are all traps for the unwary, and gulfs into which the soul sinks blindfold down to perdition.
We have lost sight of Athalia. Let us return to her—she will need all our sympathy, for she stands upon the very brink of a precipice, over which though many have fallen, few ever returned.
Mrs. Laylor manifested the greatest sympathy for Athalia that one friend could for another. ”

“ When all the gifts were displayed, he turned abruptly to Saint Leo, saying, "Messenger of a mighty God, Attila turns upon his steps. Take what thou wilt of these baubles, either as an offering to thy Deity or as a gift unto thyself!"
"God forbid!" replied the pontiff: "the God I serve--the only God!--dwells not in temples made with hands, and requires no offerings from the sons of men but a pure and contrite spirit, a repentant and an humble heart. ”

“ The man, who was a Roman fugitive, made no reply; and, after a brief pause, withdrew from the tent.
"What means she, maiden?" demanded Mizetus, turning to Neva; "what means she when she says that her beauty has caused the death of him she loved?"
"Dost thou not comprehend?" cried the girl, gazing at him through her tears; "dost thou not know that Attila himself seeks her love? Canst thou not guess that he took the life of him who was his happier rival?" ”

“ Etty had lost so much time in making up her mind that she was not ready when the carriage came to the door.
"Come, children, we have no time to lose!" called out Mr. Grey. "Are you ready?"
"I am ready," said Stella, entering Etty's room. "Shall I help you, Etty? But what made you put on that dress?"
"Because I don't want to look like a charity school-girl, as you do!" was Etty's snappish reply. "Every one will think you are a servant!"
"No, indeed! I am not half fine enough for a servant," said Stella, shrewdly. "But come, Etty; do hurry. What hat are you going to wear? ”

“ Woman, I spared him so long as his deeds affected but myself; but when he forgot all law and justice to my people, when he made ready the spear and sword to raise up contention in the land, when he slew the innocent and the noble, Attila forgot he had a brother. Neither bondage nor death await thee and thy children; thy husband's crimes have not affected thee; honour, and wealth, and peaceful possession of all that he possessed shall be thine; thy children shall be as my children, and I will defend them against their enemies. ”

“ I hope, I trust, I think that he loves me too, and therefore do I judge that I, perchance--however young and inexperienced I may be--that I may succeed better than one older and a stranger. Give me but to-morrow for repose, and on the following day I am ready to set out."
"Thanks for thy willingness, my son," replied Attila, "and thanks also for thy love; but thy young limbs scarcely do need repose, and the time thou seekest cannot be afforded thee. By the first ray of light tomorrow morning this insolent ambassador must leave the camp, and thou must go with him on the way." ”

“ When the youth had done, he replied, "Thy mother and thy sister must not depart; and I have promised the son of Paulinus that thou shouldst join him with his sister in Thrace."
He paused for a moment, and thought deeply, turned his eyes to Ildica and Flavia, and then added, "Nevertheless, ye shall stay or go, as your mother wills. If ye go not, the breach of the promise be upon you. Attila has prepared to fulfil it; but he will not, he cannot drive a son from a mother, and that mother ill as she is." ”

“ He dare not dream of striking a hair from the head of one of the citizens of Margus. Nor, since Attila is thy protector, would he dare to lay hands upon thee, even if thou wert to cross the courts of his palace to-morrow--no, not for his very throne! ”

“ Etty took her seat with a very dissatisfied face. "Everything is as cold as it can be!" said she, pettishly. "And I can't bear fish-balls."
"Well, there are plenty of nice potatoes, and bread and butter."
"I hate—" Etty was beginning, but Mr. Grey stopped her.
"Eat your breakfast and say no more about it, Esther!" said he, sharply. For he had nerves as well as his niece, and her whining grated upon them sadly. "You have made quite disturbance enough for one morning."
Etty shrugged her shoulders and made up a face, but she was afraid of her uncle and said nothing more. ”

“ The knowledge of one true God, the faith in one redeeming Saviour, are all that is wanting to raise Attila high above living men! I leave those in thy camp who may show thee a light thou hast never yet seen. ”

“ So it happened that I was much about his court and in his presence, and saw strange and unexpected things in Attila and in his Huns. For you were right, mother,” he went on, “there are no ‘half beasts’ in the creation of God, though, alas! there are half devils, fallen as the original devils of old. And you were right,” he added, looking at Ethne; “if all the Christians Attila had met had been saints, indeed had been ordinarily good or true, who can say what Attila might have become? ”

“ Thy father is dead already; why should we be left alive? Or is it thy will, oh king, that we be sold as slaves? We are ready; but we would rather die if the choice were left to such as us. We are but thy brother Bleda's widow and children, and therefore have no claim upon the conqueror of the world: no, not even to choose between death and bondage. He that spared not his own brother will not spare the women and the babes."
"Woman, I did spare him!" answered Attila, solemnly: "three times did I spare, when any other man on earth, had he been monarch or slave, had died for so offending Attila. ”

“ Attila's brow darkened; but, without noticing further than by that heavy frown his brother's words, he bade the youth proceed.
"Thou art mighty, oh king!" said Theodore, "alas! too mighty; and, it may be, that, ere thou receivest defeat from the Roman arms" (Attila smiled) , "many such a city as this that thou hast to-day destroyed may fall before thee--"
"Many shall fall!" interrupted Attila: "I will tread upon their towers from Margus to Byzantium. I will mow the land as with a scythe: I will shake the armies from before my path, as a lion shakes off the morning dew from his mane. ”

“ To all his host it had become evident, indeed, that since his encounter with Ætius a great change had come upon him; that his mind had lost a portion of its mighty calmness; that his strong passions had been gradually triumphing over the powerful intellect which had alone sufficed to rule them. But none had ever beheld him moved as he now was moved; and Attila himself, finding that he was shaken by the tempest within his breast as he had never before suffered himself to be, grew fierce at his own weakness, and added to his own emotions, by his very anger at not being able to suppress them ”

“ James Otis had maintained a haughty aloofness on her husband's ranch in summer, and later in a Rosewater cottage, her neighbors thought none the less of her for that, and Isabel, after school hours, played with their children. Later, even the transgressions of her father, and her unchaperoned trip to Europe, left her position secure. An Otis was an Otis. Noblesse oblige. Aristocracies are aristocracies the world over. ”

“ Thus he not only selects from Greek legends the story of the desertion of Ariadne, of the brief union of Protesilaus and Laodamia, of the glory and blessedness of Peleus and Thetis, but he makes the tragic deed of Attis, instigated by the fanatical hatred of love,—'Veneris nimio odio,'—the subject of his art. Others of his poems are inspired by sympathy with the happiness of his friends in the enjoyment of their love, and with their sorrow when that love [page 439] is interrupted by death. ”

“ Thou shalt find that though those, who unjustly oppose the will of Attila, injure his friends, or insult his people, die by the death they merit, yet those who risk their lives in the defence of him or his are not forgotten in the time of gratitude--but come thou with me. We march by slow journeys, that the host may diminish as we cross the land ”