Horatia

“ And then it was good fun for Horatia and really did provide varied amusement for her. Mrs. Hubbell’s settled occupation was having a good time and being modern. Like so many other women she had preëmpted the right to call her kind of living perfectly modern. Grace did the same thing—Horatia did the same thing. And each of them was using the phrase modernism to express satisfaction with the plan of her own existence. ”

“ From that time Maecenas himself resided constantly either in his magnificent palace on the Esquiline, or in some of his luxurious villas in the neighbour- hood of Rome. Horace was one of his chosen society.
This constant transition from the town to the country life is among the peculiar charms of the Horatian poetry, which thus embraces every form of Roman society. He describes, with the same intimate familiarity, the manners, the follies, and vices of the capital ; the parasites, the busy cox- combs, the legacy-hunters, the luxurious banquets of the city ”

“ The German Eduard 109 Stemplinger, in his Life of the Horatian Lyric Since the Renaissance, published in 1906, knows 90 English renderings of the entire Odes of Horace, 70 German, 100 French, and 48 Italian. Some are in prose, some even in dialect. The poet of Venusia is made a Burgundian, a Berliner, and even a Platt-deutsch. All of these are attempts to transfuse Horace into the veins of modern life, and are significant of their authors' conviction as to the vitalizing power of the ancient poet. No author from among the classics has been so frequently translated as Horace. ”

“ For justice is exiled from the earth.
Hieronimo will bear thee company.
Thy mother cries on righteous Radamant
For just revenge against the murderers.
BAZULTO. Alas, my lord, whence springs this troubled speech?
HIERO. But let me look on my Horatio:
Sweet boy, how art thou chang'd in death's black shade!
Had Proserpine no pity on thy youth,
But suffer'd thy fair crimson-colour'd spring
With wither'd winter to be blasted thus?
Horatio, thou are older than thy father:
Ah, ruthless father, that favour thus transforms.
BA. Ah, my good lord, I am not your young son.
HIE. What! ”

“ Now imagine a toy-fair, brighter and gayer than the brightest bazaar ever seen, held in an open glade, where forest-trees stood majestically behind the glittering stalls, and stretched their gigantic arms above our heads, brilliant with a thousand hanging lamps. ”

“ To the romance child-fancy weaves for itself about the meadows where the milkmaids stand thick and pale, and those green courts where lords and ladies live, Jan added that world of pleasure open to those gifted with a keen sense of form and color. ”

“ One afternoon the black mare was stepping gently up and down the grass, with her head at her master's shoulder, and as many children crowded on to her silky back as if she had been an elephant in a menagerie; and the next afternoon she carried him away, sword and sabre-tache clattering war-music at her side, and the old Postman waiting for them, rigid with salutation, at the four cross roads. ”

“ No sooner had she done so than her feet took deep root in the earth, her hair stiffened into fir-needles, and her arms became branches. She was now firmly fixed in the centre of the group of stones, a slender, swaying pine-tree, which creaked and croaked, and snapped and snarled with every gust of wind, as the princess had hardly ever done in her most ill-tempered moments. ”

“ But it was a wooden yoke under which Horatius stooped, and one of the beams was treasured for many years, and named the ‘sister’s beam.’
Yet it was not only the memory of his penance that was preserved. To recall his courage to the Romans who would follow him, the arms which Horatius had taken from the Curiatii were hung on a pillar in the market-place. And in days to come the citizens would point to this pillar, saying: ‘It is the pillar of Horatius.’
When she saw Horatius wearing on his shoulders the cloak of her betrothed, she broke into bitter sobs. ”

“ The fresh breeze that favoured us, the sunshine that—helped by the enchantment of distance—made warehouses look like public buildings, and stone houses like marble palaces, a softening hue of morning mist still dinging about the heights, of Brooklyn and over the distant stretch of the Hudson river islands, the sparkling waves and dancing craft in the bay, and all the dear familiar maze of spars and rigging in the docks ”

“ As the body of the young queen lay in state, wrapped in a shroud of gold all embroidered with flowers, and with so sweet a smile upon her face that she looked like one who dreams happy dreams in sleep, the sorrowing king took the child in his arms, and kneeling by the bier vowed never to marry again, but to make his wife's only child the heir of his crown and kingdom. ”

“ Over his head, through immeasurable distances, the dark blue space was lighted by the great multitude of the stars, whose glittering ranks have in that atmosphere a distinctness and a glory unseen with us. Perhaps no scene of beauty in the visible creation has proved a more hackneyed theme for the poet and the philosopher than a starry night. ”

“ Free in the sweet sunshine--beating down the evening air with silver wings and their feathers like gold--ignorant of cold eggs and callow young dead in deserted nests--sped on their way by such a roar as rarely shook the village in its body corporate--they flew straight home--to Daddy Darwin's Dovecot. ”

“ The rigging on that side was as full of men as a bare garden-tree might be of sparrows, and all along the lee bulwarks they sat and crouched like sea-birds on a line of rock. Suddenly we rolled, down went the leeside, and I with it, but I caught hold of the lowest step of the forecastle ladder and sat fast. Then as we dipped I saw all that they were seeing from the masts and rigging—the yet restless sea with fast-running waves, alternately inky black, and of a strange bright metallic lead-colour, on which the scud as it drove across the moon made queer racing shadows. ”

“ The moon rose like gold, and went up into the heavens like silver, flooding the moors with a pale ghostly light, taking the colour out of the heather, and painting black shadows under the stone walls. ”

“ But when another year had passed by, and the children sat plucking flowers and singing together in the garden, an angel flew down from heaven, who took them both in his arms and carried them away—away to the celestial gardens of Paradise, where they are yet together, gathering the flowers that never fade, and singing songs so wondrously beautiful, that even the blessed angels hear with joy. ”

“ Within the castle, as without, beauty reigned supreme. The sunlight, subdued by blinds and curtains, stole into rooms furnished with every grace and luxury that could be procured in a country that then accounted itself the most highly-civilized in the world. It fell upon beautiful flowers and beautiful china, upon beautiful tapestry and pictures; and it fell upon Madame the Viscountess, sitting at her embroidery. ”

“ It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good, and it’s not for me to complain of the down-break in the engines, seeing that in place of rushing past the coast, we just crawled along the top of these grand cliffs in the bonny sunshine, which hardly wakes a smile upon the stern faces of them, while the white foam breaks at no allowance about their feet. ”

“ But Amelia held the four-leaved clover above her head, and cried from her very heart—"I want to go home!"
The dwarf gave a hideous yell of disappointment, and at this instant the stock came tumbling head over heels into the midst, crying—"Oh! the pills, the powders, and the draughts! oh, the lotions and embrocations! oh, the blisters, the poultices, and the plasters! men may well be so short-lived!" ”

“ Believe me, my boy, your true mother, the tender nurse of your infancy, sleeps in the sacred shadow of this dear old church. It is your part to make her name, and the name of your respectable foster-father, famous as your own; to render your windmill as highly celebrated as Rembrandt’s, and to hang late laurels of fame on the grave of your grand old schoolmaster. Ah! my child, I know well that the ductile artistic nature takes shape very early. The coloring of childhood stains every painter’s canvas who paints from the heart. ”

“ What that is, some know, and many a man converted late in life has imagined with heart-wrung envy: an Augustine, already numbered with the Saints, a Prodigal robed and decked with more than pardon, haunted yet by dark shadows of the past, the husks and the swine. ”

“ The black trees and hedges whirling past us in the darkness, always the same, like an enchanted drive; then the endless suburbs, and at last the streets where people lounged in corners and stopped the way, as if every second of time were not worth a king's ransom ”

“ For the lust of blood, it was entered into his bones.
11 Moreover, he did take a damsel unto him to wife.
12 ¶ Now Horatio, being the scribe of the new apocrypha, he refrained not from writing concerning Horatio, and concerning the things that Horatio, he would do.
13 And on an occasion he spake unto the people in a loud voice, saying unto them, Hearken unto my voice, ye men of En, and pay heed to the words of my mouth. For who shall be keeper of the victuals? And who the chief larderer of En?
14 Verily, there is such a man that be fit for to undertake it. ”

“ If we ever do just taste anything of the vital, hopeful rapture, the elastic delight of the old man of a fairy tale, who leaves his cares, his crutches, and his chimney-corner, to go forth again young amongst the young,—it is when the winter is ended and the spring is come. ”

“ To see old Jem at logger-heads with my father, and perhaps demoralized by an inferior school? To turn my own back and shut my eyes for ever on all that the wide seas embrace; my highest goal to be to grow as rich as Uncle Henry or richer, and perhaps as mean or meaner? Should I choose for life a life I hated, and set seals to my choice by drinking silver-top with the Jew-clerk?—No, Moses, no! ”

“ Knowing, as we do, every plant and its place,—having taken just pride in its summer bloom,—having preserved this by cares and trimmings and proppings to a picturesque and florid autumn, though wild-flowers have long been shrivelled and shapeless,—having tidied it up and put a little something comforting round it when bloom and outline were absolutely no more: what must we feel when we first detect the ruddy young shoots of our favourite pæonies, or perceive that the brown old hepaticas have become green and young again and are full of flower-buds? ”

“ A south-west wind is blowing over the plains. It drives the “messengers” over the sky, and the sails of the windmill, and makes the dead leaves dance upon the graves. It does much to dispel the evil effects of the foul smells and noxious gases, which are commoner yet in the little village than one might suppose. (But it is a long time, you see, since the fever was here.) It shows the silver lining of the willow leaves by the little river, and bends the flowers which grow in one glowing mass—like some gorgeous Eastern carpet—on Master Swift’s grave. ”

“ Perhaps, if I try hard at Convalescence now, I may become a brave sea-captain hereafter, and take my beautiful ship into battle, and bring her out again with flying colours and fame,
If the courage that dares, and the courage that bears, are really one and the same. ”

“ The pale, eager, loving little face that turned to her in its loneliness, now brightens a happy home; but the remembrance of it is with the little old lady still, pleasant as the remembrance of flowers when winter has come. Yes, truly, not the least pleasant of Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances. ”

“ The Frog-bit spreads me its blossoms of snow,
And in masses
The Willow-herb, the flags, and the grasses,
Reeds, rushes, and sedges,
Flower and fringe and feather my edges.
To be beautiful is not amiss,
But to be loved is more than this;
And who more sought than I,
By all that run or swim or crawl or fly? ”

“ Once fairly in and rolled in my blanket, I felt as snug as a chrysalis in his cocoon, and (besides the fact that lying down is a great comfort to people who are not born with sea-legs) I found the gentle swaying of my hammock a delightful relief from the bumping, jumping, and jarring of the ship. ”

“ Horatius, finding himself alone with the hostile army in front and the foaming Tiber behind him, bravely plunged into the swift-flowing river, though clad in full armor, and swam safely to the opposite bank, greatly to the rejoicing of his fellow countrymen, Horatius has been widely popularized as a hero by Macaulay's poem in the Lays of Ancient Rome. ”

“ Horace is so associated with all the localities, that one would think it the most natural thing in the world to come upon him at any turning. His old familiar haunts rise up about us out of the dust of centuries. We see a short thick-set man come sauntering along, "more fat than bard beseems." As he passes, lost in reverie, many turn round and look at him. Some point him out to their companions, and by what they say, we learn that this is Horace, the favourite of Maecenas, the frequent visitor at the unpretending palace of Augustus, the self-made man and famous poet. ”

“ More and more did it seem impossible that one could live content in one little corner of this interesting world when one has eyes to see and ears to hear, and hands for work, and legs to run away with. ”

“ The Odes of Horace have never been transcended, and will probably remain through all the ages, the delight of scholars. They may not have the deep religious sentiment, and the unity of imagination and passion which belong to the Greek lyrical poets, but as works of art, of exquisite felicity of expression, of agreeable images, they are unrivaled. Even in the time of Juvenal, his poems were the common school books of Roman youth. Horace, like Virgil, was a favored man, enjoying the friendship of the great with ease, fame, and fortune. ”