Gracchi brothers

“ Then kneeling amid broken glasses and flasks, the brotherhood was sealed, eternal fidelity sworn, and generally, he, was denounced as the worst scoundrel, who did not preserve unbroken friendship. Such brotherhood did not, however, prevent a great fight the very next hour. But, common as they made themselves on these occasions, they never forgot that they were "wild noblemen of ancient family." Citizens, and those who had patents of nobility from the Emperor might, indeed, become brothers. ”

“ Then, stricken with great grief, I began to think what I could do to cleanse the dying man, and how I should make his sins a warning to the living brethren. Accordingly, having summoned Pretiosus, the superintendent of the monastery, I commanded him to see that none of the brothers visited the dying man, who was not to hear any words of consolation. If in the hour of death he asked for the brethren, then his own brother in the flesh was to tell him how he was hated by the brethren because he had concealed money ”

“ After partaking of a wonderful meal provided by Lady Wharton, Gracie's little brothers and sisters had the treat of sitting up late to look at father, who, weak as he was, would not go to bed, but reclined in an armchair lent by a sympathising neighbour--ah, how sweet and beautiful is the kindness of the poor to the poor!--and with Gracie's hand in his, gazed with gratitude upon the dear ones to whom he had been almost miraculously restored. ”

“ Although Gregory bewails this “thrusting out from port into the storm,” one cannot but feel how the alert fighting spirit in the man leaps to the call. The born leader may persuade himself that he is happiest in the seclusion he thinks good for his soul, but when the call to arms comes, every repressed fibre of his being wakes and cries for action.
When Gregory, taking with him several of his monks, sailed away from Italy, he little dreamed that years were to pass before he should return. ”

“ But on this very account, perhaps, we are regarded as having less claim to be held true brothers, that no tragedy makes a noise about our brotherhood, or that the family possessions, which generally destroy brotherhood among you, create fraternal bonds among us. ”

“ Copiosus, of course, could not conceal this from the brethren. He sought carefully, and examined all his brother's drugs, until he found the three gold pieces hidden away among the medicines. When he told me this great calamity that concerned a brother who had lived in common with us, I could hardly hear it with calmness. For the rule of our monastery was always that the brothers should live in common and own nothing individually. ”

“ One can choose as compare a friend in whom one has confidence, whereas there is no choosing a brother, and cases have been known in which brothers did not agree. But any compare taking advantage of his position would be a contemptible traitor and among the sulphur-miners would provide material for a play at the Teatro Machiavelli. Talking it over with Peppino Pampalone he told me that sometimes things do go wrong, so that they say there are three relations more dangerous than enemies—the cognato (the brother-in-law) the cugino (the cousin) , and the compare. ”

“ And as the little fleet grew less and less, and at last disappeared, we girls thought it was a grand thing to have such brave brothers.
I was the elder girl, being ten, and Gracie seven. Our Gracie was a lovely little sister; she had large blue eyes, and wavy brown hair, and was very gentle and obedient, and people called her “Pet,” almost as soon as they became acquainted with her.
Mother had blue flannel suits made for us, and dressed in these, with sailor hats that had little tapping ribbons at the sides, we scurried along the beach, climbed the rocks, or waded out into the salt water. ”

“ In Corsica, the fraternal relation is viewed as the holiest of all relations, and the names of brother and sister indicate the purest happiness the heart can have—its noblest treasure, or its saddest loss. The eldest brother, as the stay of the family, is revered simply in his character as such. I believe nothing expresses so fully the range of feeling, and the moral nature of a people, as its songs. Now the Corsican song is strictly a dirge, which is at the same time a song of revenge; and most of these songs of revenge are dirges of the sister for her brother who has fallen. ”

“ It must be admitted that the Gracchi were so eager for victory that they had not shown a sufficiently moderate spirit; but a good man would prefer to be defeated rather than to triumph over injustice by establishing a bad precedent. ”

“ Sometimes I think it’s pretty fine to have so many brothers. I always used to wish that one of them had been a sister, but I concluded that there wasn’t any of the boys that I could spare, anyhow, and if I had a sister she’d have to be extra. Then I went to Greycliff and at once had a lot of sisters! The Psyche Club supplies the lack!”
The girls talked on till, thoroughly awake, they began to feel the pangs of hunger. “I believe I could eat a piece of hot toast and a scrambled egg,” said Isabel. “How about you, Virgie?” Virginia acknowledged that the suggestion was pleasing. ”

“ Neither the influence nor the eloquence of Gracchus could induce the people to view with satisfaction the admission of the Italian allies to equal rights and privileges with themselves. The Senate, perceiving that the popularity of Gracchus had been somewhat shaken by this measure, employed his colleague, M. Living Drusus—who was noble, well-educated, wealthy, and eloquent—to undermine his influence with the people. ”

“ Them and theirs;—for another very noticeable trait of Italian social life in those centuries is the great strength of the clannish tie, which made all the members of a family responsible for, and generally partakers in [Pg 227] the political crimes of any one among them. The fathers, sons, brothers, uncles of a baffled, detected, or overpowered conspirator, share his fate. Often the females of a family are involved in the condemnation. The whole race is to be rooted out. ”

“ Grassia’s daughter grew up into a fine woman, with no particular 121 good looks, but of imposing aspect. She never married, bearing in mind her mother’s injunctions to devote herself to the care of her brothers, and to keep Tumbolin before her as a model for imitation, and she no doubt led her gang with much energy and success. In older times there were female Thugs, women who accompanied their husbands on expeditions, and one is mentioned by Sleeman who was the jemadar of a gang of her own. ”

“ Like the other general conclusions arrived at in this chapter, it has features common to all the aboriginal tribes of Australia.
We have extremely scanty information concerning the relation between brothers and sisters; and the few hints we possess are very contradictory. Thus Gason says that a brother and sister "would sacrifice their lives for one another if called upon." [844] And Fraser informs us that when a man is sick it is his brother's duty to tend him and carry him about. ”

“ The Gracchi would have frowned or smiled, could they have read the sonorous titles and epithets of their successor, “Nicholas, severe and merciful; deliverer of Rome; defender of Italy; 34 friend of mankind, and of liberty, peace, and justice; tribune august:” his theatrical pageants had prepared the revolution; but Rienzi abused, in luxury and pride, the political maxim of speaking to the eyes, as well as the understanding, of the multitude. ”

“ In the Gracchi, indeed, it must be allowed that, from their ardor for victory, there was not sufficient prudence. But to a reasonable man it is more agreeable to submit [146] to injustice than to triumph over it by improper means. The nobility, however, using their victory with wanton extravagance, exterminated numbers of men by the sword or by exile, yet rather increased, for the time to come, the dread with which they were regarded, than their real power. ”

“ But Ruggero fell upon his knees before his foe, and while he embraced his feet with sobs, begged his forgiveness, and God's.
"Rise, my friend Grimaldi," said Orso Paolo; "may God so to-day forgive us both, as we forgive each other; and here, before the people of Olmo, swear eternal friendship."
The foes sank into each other's arms, and the people shouted exultingly: Evviva, Orso Paolo!
Antonio soon recovered from his wound; and gay were the festivities of that evening in the village of Monte d'Olmo, when the Grimaldi and the Vincenti celebrated their solemn feast of reconciliation. ”

“ At last, after six years of what must have been the most anxious work, requiring all that the great man had of wisdom and firmness and tact, he returned to Italy—to find his beloved Rome in terrible distress from a visitation of the pestilence. Gregory at once devoted himself to the care of the sick and dying, and one can fancy how the poor people’s eyes lighted up when he appeared among them again. ”

“ XLII For example, when Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, whose forefathers [74] had added greatly to the power of the republic in the Punic and other wars, began to assert the freedom of the commons and expose the crimes of the oligarchs, the nobility, who were guilty, were therefore panic stricken. They accordingly opposed the acts of the Gracchi, now through the allies and the Latin cities and again through the knights, whom the hope of an alliance [75] with the senate had estranged from the commons. ”

“ The error in judgment is excusable in one who had never veiled his sympathy with the Italian cause, and had hitherto found it no hindrance to his popularity; but so clear-sighted a man as Gracchus must have felt at times that he was staking, not only his own career, but the fate of the programme and the party which he had built up, on the chance of securing an end, which had ceased to be regarded as the mere removal of an obstacle and had grown to be looked on as the coping-stone of a true reformer's work. ”

“ He sold all [39] his goods, distributed the larger part to the poor, and, as if to atone for what the Lombards had destroyed, built and endowed six new monasteries, placing twelve Benedictines in each, in Sicily. That done, he converted his home on the Cœlian into a seventh, where he gathered another community about him, of the same learned Order. His father was dead, and his mother, on becoming a widow, had already built a convent close by, where she had taken the veil herself.
Gregory now devoted himself to three things—prayer, study, and charity. ”

“ Familiarity with the use of force in civic strife is also a fatal cause of its perpetuation; but familiarity implies its renewed employment: it can hardly be the result of the first experiment in murder. The repetition of this ghastly phenomenon in Roman politics can only be accounted for by the belief that the Gracchan émeute was of its very nature an event that could not be isolated: that Gracchus was a pioneer in a hostile country, and that his opponents preserved all their inherent weakness after the first abortive manifestation of their pretended strength. ”

“ Grandmother pointed out my brother PERRY, my sister SARAH, and my sister ELIZA, who stood in the group. I had never seen [37] my brother nor my sisters before; and, though I had sometimes heard of them, and felt a curious interest in them, I really did not understand what they were to me, or I to them. We were brothers and sisters, but what of that? Why should they be attached to me, or I to them? Brothers and sisters we were by blood; but slavery had made us strangers. I heard the words brother and sisters, and knew they must mean something; ”

“ There are many, doubtless, who have not yet got farther in love than their own family; but there are others who have learned that for the true heart there is neither Frenchman nor Englishman, neither Jew nor Greek, neither white nor black—only the sons and daughters of God, only the brothers and sisters of the one elder brother. ”

“ I daresay you’ll find some one can make you much happier than I could; the first person we love is seldom the right one. You are very young; it’s quite natural you should change.”
She said nothing.
“Things often seem hard at the time, but Providence makes them turn out for the best in the end,” said Gregory. “You’ll let me kiss you, Em, just for old friendship’s sake.” He stooped down. “You must look upon me as a dear brother, as a cousin at least; as long as I am on the farm I shall always be glad to help you, Em.” ”

“ Old differences were forgotten; a common panic produced harmony amongst the cliques; it even seems as if his opponents agreed that no man of extreme views should be advanced against him, for Gracchus in his tribunate had to contend with no such hostile colleague as Octavius. The candidature of an extremist might mean votes for Gracchus: and it was preferable to concentrate support on neutral men, or even on men of liberal views who were known to be in favour with the crowd. ”

“ In intimate and perfectly natural connexion with this custom, stand the Corsican family feuds, still at the present day the scourge of the unhappy island. The families in a state of Vendetta, immediately draw into it all their relatives, and even friends; and in Corsica, as in other countries where the social condition of the population is similar, the tie of clan is very strong. Thus wars between families arise within one and the same village, or between village and village, glen and glen; and the war continues, and blood is shed for years. ”

“ Lists of the proscribed were posted at Rome and in the Italian cities. It was a fearful visitation. A second reign of terror took place, more fearful and systematic than that of Marius. Four thousand seven hundred persons were slaughtered, among whom were forty senators, and one thousand six hundred equites.
His triumphs. The next year Sulla celebrated his magnificent triumph over Mithridates, and was saluted by the name of Felix. The despotism at which the Gracchi were accused of aiming was introduced by a military conqueror, aided by the aristocracy. ”