Clio

“ I do not think Clio can have noticed what had happened, for she said briskly:
“And now, Erato, we will have your story. The young men in Cambridge must be all in bed and asleep, so it won’t hurt them. You must not spoil it by leaving anything out. Let it be the story of you and the shepherd, you know—and don’t——”
“Clio, Clio,” said Euterpe quickly, “can’t you see that Erato is ill? Please go on quickly, and let Calliope tell her story. When that is finished, Erato will be all right again. She has been worrying herself.” ”

“ Ah—and afterwards!
“Clio,” she said, drawing a long breath, “I have a story, sweet and fit for a summer night, a story of the joyousness, and rapture, and sorrow of Love. Will you hear it?”
“Ah, yes, Clio!” said Terpsichore. “Erato once told me a story, and it was so lovely and dreamy. It had the temper of soft valse music. One’s heart throbbed to it: one lived to it, as it were. Let us hear Erato’s story.”
“Not just yet, I think,” answered Clio. “We must [76] not forget that Granta lies beneath us. Far down below our feet, one sits—a young man with red hair—amid many dictionaries. ”

“ Too many men are alive who have been moved, pushed and gently jostled out of the way by him, as he forged to the front. Perspective is required in order to get rid of prejudice. But the work of James J. Hill is dedicated to time; and Clio will eventually write his name high on her roster as a great modern prophet, a creator, a builder. Pericles built a city, but this man made an empire. Smiling farms, thriving schools, busy factories and happy homes sprang into being in the sunlight of prosperity which he made possible, and as yet the wealth of the "Hill Country" is practically untapped. ”

“ Know, then, that for a long time Clio had been thoroughly discontented. She was happy enough, she says, when first she left the home of Pierus, her father, to become a Muse. On those humble beginnings she looks back with affection. She kept only one servant, Herodotus. The romantic element in him appealed to her. He died, and she had about her a large staff of able and faithful servants, whose way of doing their work irritated and depressed her. To them, apparently, life consisted of nothing but politics and military operations—things to which she, being a woman, was somewhat indifferent. ”

“ There remained yet an hour before the time of his departure, and Philip, more by instinct than design, turned towards the library, and, pushing back the noiseless portières, entered. The room was empty, and lay in the half-shadow of the quick coming evening. A touch of gold from the setting sun still lingered on the painted windows, touching to a deeper tone the blues and purples in the classic folds of Clio's drapery. One casement stood open, and the evening air floated in, fragrant with a thousand odours from Nature's laboratory ”

“ Now, if history, as Professor Seeley teaches us, should begin with a maxim and end with a moral, here are maxims and morals in abundance, albeit they may have lost their flavor for an altruistic age. For no one of the sister Muses has lent herself so unreservedly to the demands of an exacting generation as Clio, who, shorn of her splendor, sits spectacled before a dusty table strewn with Acts of Parliament and Acts of Congress, and forgets the glories of the past in the absorbing study of constitutions. ”

“ Before his flying fingers could reach the buttons the Boise was upon them; had struck the speedster in direct central impact. Moving at the full measure of her unthinkable velocity though the super-ship was in the instant of impact, yet the most delicate recording instruments of the speedster could not detect the slightest shock as the enormous globe struck the comparatively tiny torpedo and clung to it; accommodating instantaneously and effortlessly her own terrific pace to that of the smaller and infinitely slower craft. Clio sobbed in relief and Costigan, one arm around her, sighed hugely. ”

“ Henty in With Clive in India. It has always seemed to me that a single book provides too narrow a canvas for the display of a life so full and varied as Clive's; while a story is bound to suffer, structurally and in detail, from the compression of the events of a life-time into so restricted a space. I have therefore chosen two outstanding events in the history of India and of Clive--the capture of Gheria and the Battle of Plassey; and have made them the pivot of a personal story of adventure. ”

“ Not less illustrious than the greatest of these will be the name of Clay—a name pronounced with pride by Americans in every quarter of the globe; a name to be remembered while history shall record the struggles of modern Greece for freedom, or the spirit of liberty burn in the South American bosom; a living and immortal name—a name that would descend to posterity without the aid of letters, borne by tradition from generation to generation. Every memorial of such a man will possess a meaning and a value to his countrymen. ”

“ They undoubtedly prove, however, that the man behind them, and not the manner or matter of them, was the thing that made Henry Clay the most lovable character in American history.
[Pg 42]
Bibliography. There are many biographies of Clay, and numerous collections of his speeches. Carl Schurz's Henry Clay (Boston, 1887, two vols.) , is the best account of the statesman; Henry Clay, by Thomas H. Clay (Philadelphia, 1910) , is adequate for Clay the man; and Daniel Mallory's Life and Speeches of the Hon. Henry Clay (New York, 1844) , is the finest collection of his speeches made hitherto. ”

“ There is no more familiar and interesting figure in our political history than Henry Clay, and no party leader who was more idolized, or followed with more enthusiasm. His political life began with the century and continued until his death in 1852, and his biography therefore includes the political history of that half-century. ”

“ I can only tell you, what your love to your country will make you sorry for, that your conduct shines with a peculiar brightness, from the unglorious doings of our leaders of armies and admirals of fleets in Europe; and that the name of a Clive is made use of in the public papers to reproach and stimulate his superiors in rank, but not in fame. ”

“ Appius Claudius, the boldest innovator known in Roman history, in his censorship in 442 without consulting the senate or people so adjusted the burgess-roll, that a man who had no land was received into whatever tribe he chose and then according to his means into the corresponding century. ”

“ They have given and accepted a truce. The duke's men have returned; and the Greeks without any delay return, each one to his tent. But Cliges remained alone on a hill so that no one noticed him till he saw the twelve coming, and the damsel whom they were taking away at full speed and at a gallop. Cliges, who longs to gain renown, forthwith dashes in their direction, for he thinks to himself, and his heart tells him that it is not for nothing they are fleeing. The very moment that he saw them, he dashes after them; and they see him; but they think and believe a foolish thing. ”

“ The Greeks and Germans are overjoyed to see Cliges on such a mount, for they had already remarked the excellence and beauty of the Arab steed. But they were not on their guard against an ambuscade; and before they are aware of it great damage will be done.
(Vv. 3621–3748.) A spy came to the duke, bringing him welcome news. "Duke," says the spy, "not a man remains in all the encampment of the Greeks who is able to defend himself. If thou wilt take my word for it, now is the time to have the emperor's daughter seized, while the Greeks are seen intent upon the battle and the strife. ”

“ Cilli is one of the oldest places in Styria, and was probably a Celtic settlement. It was taken possession of by the Romans in 15 B.C., and in A.D. 50 the emperor Claudius raised it to a Roman municipium and named it Claudia Celeja. It soon became one of the most flourishing Roman colonies, and possessed numerous great buildings, of which the temple of Mars was famous throughout the whole empire. ”

“ It would be difficult to find an example, in any regular army, of one so young and of such a subordinate rank as Clive, having crowded into the short space of two years such a series of successful enterprises. He was not more than twenty-seven years of age, and had only within the last year been promoted to the rank of Captain. After being distinguished on several occasions by the most resolute valour, he had displayed at Arcot, and during the operations which followed that memorable siege, all the superior qualities of a military leader. ”

“ Well, what am I to do? Could I turn Cilicia into an Aetolia or a Macedonia? Let me tell you this, that with an army such as mine, and in a place like this, such a big business was impossible. You shall have it all en abrégé; as you agreed in your last letter to take it. You know about my arrival at Ephesus, for you have congratulated me on my enthusiastic reception on that day, which gave me as much pleasure as anything ever did in my life. ”

“ Neander, Gieseler, Baur, Döllinger, Hefele, Alzog, Harnack, Janssen, and Pastor are writers on ecclesiastical history. German travelers have explored many of the countries of the globe. Schliemann has uncovered the ruins of Troy. In mathematics and the natural sciences, in philology and criticism, in philosophy, in law and the political sciences, and in the different branches of theology, the world acknowledges its debt to the patient, methodical investigations and the exhaustive discussions of German students during the nineteenth century. ”

“ But a higher honour was reserved for Clive, and one he valued more than all others. His name was not only brought forward, but held forth as an example, by the celebrated William Pitt. That statesman, in his speech on the Mutiny Bill, after adverting to the late disgraces which had attended the British arms, said, "We had lost our glory, honour, and reputation every where but in India. There the country had a heaven-born general who had never learned the art of war, nor was his name enrolled among the great officers who had for many years received their country's pay. ”

“ Thus the Claudii and Marcelli, before referred to (supra p. 287) , were two families of the Claudian gens, but the Claudii alone were patricians. It will be borne in mind, that prior to the time of Servius Tullius the Romans were divided into two classes, the populus and the plebeians; but that after his time, and particularly after the Licinian legislation (367 B. C.) by which all the dignities of the state were opened to every citizen, the Roman people, of the degree of freemen, fell into two political classes, which may be distinguished as the aristocracy and the commonalty. ”

“ Cicero complied with the request, and took the opportunity, so characteristic of him, of lauding his own administration of Cilicia, and making a kind of pun at the same time. "I have given orders to the hunters to see about the panthers; but panthers are very scarce, and the few there are complain, people say, that in the whole province there are no traps laid for anybody but for them". Catching and skinning the unfortunate provincials, which had been a favourite sport with governors like Verres, had been quite done away with in Cilicia, we are to understand, under Cicero's rule. ”

“ He sought rather to increase the shares of the fleet and the troops at his own expense, as he had done at Gheria, and did more than once afterwards, with prize of war. What he did take from the grateful nawab for himself was less than the circumstances justified from an Oriental point of view, was far less than was pressed upon him, not only by Jafar Ali, but by the hundreds of native nobles whose gifts Clive steadily refused, and was openly acknowledged from the first. ”

“ Clive it was gave England India, while your father gives—egad,
England nothing but the graceless boy who lures him on to speak—
“Well, Sir, you and Clive were comrades—” with a tongue thrust in your cheek!
Very true: in my eyes, your eyes, all the world’s eyes, Clive was man,
I was, am, and ever shall be—mouse, nay, mouse of all its clan
Sorriest sample, if you take the kitchen’s estimate for fame;
While the man Clive—he fought Plassy, spoiled the clever foreign game,
Conquered and annexed and Englished! ”

“ Till other evidence comes to hand these little objects must be our witnesses to the existence of a highly developed sub-Hittite culture in Cilicia which, as early as the ninth century, had already been refined by the influence of the Greek settlements on the Anatolian coasts and perhaps, even earlier, by the Cretan art of the Aegean area. Cilician civilization offers a link between east and west which is worth more consideration and study than have been given to it by historians. ”

“ Cilicia was a province of considerable extent, including, as it did, the south-eastern portion of Asia Minor, together with the island of Cyprus. The position of its governor was made more anxious by the neighborhood of Rome's most formidable neighbors, the Parthians, who but two years before had cut to pieces the army of Crassus. Two legions, numbering twelve thousand troops besides auxiliaries, were stationed in the province, having attached to them between two and three thousand cavalry. ”

“ The three greatest of these were the nawab of the Deccan, or south and central India, who ruled from Hyderabad, the nawab of Bengal, whose capital was Murshidabad, and the nawab or wazir of Oudh. The prize lay between Dupleix, who had the genius of an administrator, or rather intriguer, but was no soldier, and Clive, the first of a century’s brilliant succession of those “soldier-politicals,” as they are called in the East, to whom Great Britain owes the conquest and consolidation of its greatest dependency. ”