Phaleron

“ The person selected for this office was Demetrius of Phaleron, a distinguished Athenian citizen; and under his mild and equitable rule the people were far happier than they could have been under a democracy, for which they had proved themselves no longer fit. Cassander then passed over into Peloponnesus, and laid siege to Tegea. While here, he heard that Olympias had put to death several of his friends in Macedonia; among the rest, Philip Aridæus and his wife Eurydice, members of the royal family. ”

“ Supported by the Macedonians, Demetrius the Phalerean had now ruled Athens for a period of more than ten years. Of mean birth, Demetrius the Phalerean owed his elevation entirely to his talents and perseverance. His skill as an orator raised him to distinction among his countrymen; and his politics, which led him to embrace the party of Phocion, recommended him to Cassander and the Macedonians. He cultivated many branches of literature, and was at once an historian, a philosopher, and a poet ”

“ They covet the palfrey which Enide rides. "My lords, do you know the news I bring?" says he to his two companions. "If we do not now make a haul, we are good-for-nothing cowards and are playing in bad luck. Here comes a lady wondrous fair, whether married or not I do not know, but she is very richly dressed. The palfrey and saddle, with the breast-strap and reins, are worth a thousand livres of Chartres. I will take the palfrey for mine, and the rest of the booty you may have. I don't want any more for my share. The knight shall not lead away the lady, so help me God. ”

“ I answered to him as I drew nearer and laid my hand with timidity upon the sleeve of his coat.
“My God, boy, do they grow many like you in France?” was the answer that the great Gouverneur Faulkner made to me as he looked down into the adoration of my eyes raised to his, with a question that was of deep bewilderment.
“France has grown many young and fine men who—who die, my Gouverneur Faulkner for her in the trenches, where I must soon go,” I answered him with my head drawn to its entire height in the likeness of the old Marquis of Grez and Flanders. ”

“ Parmentier, a tall, thin man, in a sky-blue dress-coat, a white cravat, and the tri-colored sash around his waist, stood on the top of the steps of the guard-house, with the members of the municipal council behind him, under the arch, and shouted out:
"Phalsburgians! The time has come in which to show your devotion to the Empire. A year ago all Europe was with us, now all Europe is against us. We should have everything to fear without the energy and power of the people. He who will not do his duty now will be a traitor to his country! Inhabitants of Phalsburg, show what you are! ”

“ Demetrius Phalereus, an eminent Athenian orator, statesman, and historian, born at Phalerus, a seaport of Athens; was held in high honour in Athens for a time as its political head, but fell into dishonour, after which he lived retired and gave himself up to literary pursuits; died from the bite of an asp; left a number of works (345-283 B.C.) .
Demidoff, a Russian family distinguished for their wealth, descended from a serf of Peter the Great, and who amassed a large fortune by manufacturing firearms for him, and were raised by him to the rank of nobility ”

“ The anecdote puts La Palferine’s genius before you in all its vivacity and completeness. He realizes Pascal’s entre-deux, he comprehends the whole scale between tenderness and pitilessness, and, like Epaminondas, he is equally great in extremes. And not merely so, his epigram stamps the epoch; the accoucheur is a modern innovation. All the refinements of modern civilization are summed up in the phrase. ”

“ In every position into which chance has thrown La Palferine, he has never failed to rise to the occasion. All that he does is witty and never in bad taste; always and in everything he displays the genius of Rivarol, the polished subtlety of the old French noble. ”

“ Your antecedents, my dear Monsieur Phellion, ought surely to win you such rewards, for I am told that you are not only a patriot but a good citizen."
"Monsieur," said Phellion, embarrassed, "monsieur, I have only done my duty." At the word "daughter-in-law," uttered by Theodose, Madame Barniol, who resembled her mother as much as one drop of water is like another, looked at Madame Phellion and at Felix as if she would say, "Were we mistaken?" ”

“ As he spoke, he cast his rifle to the earth. "You have but to will it, to complete the ruin you have begun."
"Alas, young man, unhappy young man," said Colonel Falconer, "I know you, and would recompense your humanity, if such it really be. You should not, at least, perish like the rest of your mad and infatuated brothers, and yet you are rushing upon the same destruction; you have not been gently nurtured, to live the life of a bravo and outcast. I have heard of you, of your generous acts—of at least one,—nay, two; for Henry Falconer confessed you had both spared and saved his life. ”

“ The worthy man had more than once thought, but was not yet decided, to beg Monsieur Minard to assist him in obtaining his secret desire.
Phellion, a man of passive obedience, was stoical in the matter of duty, and iron in all that touched his conscience. To complete this picture by a sketch of his person, we must add that at fifty-nine years of age Phellion had "thickened," to use a term of the bourgeois vocabulary. ”

“ Little Pearl Faithfull ran forward, and—like the child that she was—held out both hands to General Falconer.
"It is good to see you," she cried. "I don't know when I've been as glad of anything." The girl of seventeen and the soldier of forty shook hands once and again. He smiled down at her and looked at nobody else. Then she turned blushing and dewy-eyed to Mrs. Hubbard, with a glance which took in everyone. "I think I'm very lucky," she said, "to have General Falconer for one of my oldest friends. We have known him, my sister and I ever since I was a little girl—oh, a very little girl. ”

“ She paused, battling for breath; and then, as Falconer tried to speak, she put out her hand to stop him, and went on hurriedly:
“That’s all over! It’s done with! Now you must help me. Your knowledge must help me. You are a man. You will know what to do; how he can be saved! He must be saved! He must!”
She turned away from him with a wild, unconscious gesture, as though his personality had no existence for her save and except as he could serve her purpose, and began once more to pace up and down the room.
Falconer followed her with his eyes, standing motionless and confounded. ”

“ He had spoken with her and Regine, and had stood for a long time beside the body of his friend, who only yesterday had called to him so confidently, "auf wiedersehen"--who had been so full of his projects and plans for his future and his newly acquired possessions. Now all this had come to an end. Cold and stiff he lay upon his bier, and cold and gloomy Falkenried now stood at the window of his room. Even this awful accident was not able to shake his stony composure, for he had long ago forgotten to consider death a misfortune. Life was hard--but not death. ”

“ I had long lost sight of him, and thought that he had left Rome, or was dead. Syra, save him!’
‘Phlegon will be glad to save him, if it can be done undiscovered. He loathes stabbing the poor gladiators when they have not quite been killed. Yet, if it were discovered that he spared but one of them, he would certainly be torn to pieces or crucified.’
Junia’s mind was instantly made up. At all costs, Onesimus should have such chance of life secured to him as nature rendered possible. She told Syra to let Phlegon speak with her. ”

“ Bill long and slender. Female in summer with a black line through eye, shading into a broad stripe of rich chestnut on the sides of the neck. Male much duller colored and slightly smaller. This phalarope is one of the most beautiful of all our shore birds, and is the most southerly distributed of the phalaropes. It is a bird of the interior, and is only rarely or casually met with on the sea coasts. It commonly travels about in small companies instead of large flocks as the other two species do, and is not as often seen on the water, although it can swim well. ”

“ After having undergone this sharp rebuke, the keeper of the harriers hung his head, and allowed the falconer to get two steps in advance of him nearer to D’Artagnan.
“He is content,” said the falconer, in a low voice, to the musketeer; “we all know that harriers are in fashion nowadays; if he were a falconer he would not talk in that way.” ”

“ For who like Fuller could have brought out and set forth, this singular compound of true philosophic genius with the morals of a quack and the manners of a king of the gypsies! Nevertheless, Paracelsus belonged to his age—the dawn of experimental science: and a well written critique on his life and writings would present, through the magnifying glass of a caricature, the distinguishing features of the Helmonts, Kirchers, &c. in short, of the host of naturalists of the sixteenth century. The period might begin with Paracelsus and end with Sir Kenelm Digby. ”

“ In the words of that eminent English divine, Thomas Fuller (1608-1661) , Paracelsus boasted of more than he could do, did more cures seemingly than really, more cures really than lawfully, of more parts than learning, of more fame than parts, a better physician than a man, and a better chirurgeon than physician.
Paracelsus was a very prince among quacks, for probably no man ever talked more loudly and ostentatiously or made vainer pretensions. He was emphatically a knavish practitioner of medicine, a master of the art of puffery, and was [246] phenomenally successful in achieving notoriety. ”

“ Paul. Very well, dear. I call you dear, as we are alone, but later on, before the guests, it must be merely Jeanne. The Comtesse de Céran has done me the honor of asking me to introduce my young wife to her, and of spending a few days here at her château. Mme. de Céran’s circle is one of the three or four most influential in Paris. We are not here to amuse ourselves. I come here merely a Sub-prefect; I am determined to leave a Prefect. Everything depends on her—upon us—upon you!
Jeanne. Upon me? What do you mean?
Paul. Of course, on you! Society judges a man by his wife, and society is right. ”

“ That Pharold, either in some fierce dispute, or in some accidental affray, might have killed her unfortunate nephew, or that his companions might have done so, without his will or concurrence, Mrs. Falkland did not doubt: but she had heard too much of his character and behaviour in youth to believe that, twenty years before, when he was still a young man, he could have been so hardened in guilt as, for the purpose of paltry plunder, to take the life of the only man for whom, with the exception of his own tribe, he had shown affection. ”

“ The Indian designation of this idol was Lingam, and those who dedicated themselves to its service were to observe inviolable chastity. “If it were discovered,” says Crawford, “that they had in any way departed from them, the punishment is death. They go naked, and being considered as sanctified persons, the women approach without scruple, nor is it thought that their modesty should be offended by it.”
SYMBOLS OR EMBLEMS The Phallus and its emblems were representative of the gods Bacchus, Priapus, Hercules, Siva, Osiris, Baal, and Asher, who were all Phallic deities. ”

“ Thus far Decker; what follows, I apprehend, was written by Massinger. In pathos, strength, and harmony, it is not surpassed by any passage of equal length in the English language.—Gifford.
[58] As the Sicilian did his brazen bull.] The brazen bull, an ingenious instrument of torture, invented by Perillus, and presented to Phalaris, the tyrant of Agrigentum, was fatal both to its author and its owner. Phalaris made the first experiment of its powers upon Perillus; and when the people, exasperated by his cruelties, eventually rose against him, the tyrant suffered death by its means himself. ”

“ I admit that Paul has not your master’s dramatic flash, irony, and epigrammatic twist. But, as for ‘fervour,’ here, I contend, is the original Falernian, which your friend Epictetus has watered down. Not that I blame him, either as regards style or in respect of morality. His humorous description of the nursery troubles of the married Stoic was very good—for his purpose, and for a lecture. But it would not have suited Paul. A lecturer must not be too brief. If Epictetus were to pack stuff in his lectures as Paul packs it in his epistles, your lesson would sometimes not last five minutes. ”

“ I have been writing a ballad on the death of Philemon, as told by Suidas and Apuleius.' The doctor expressed a wish to hear it, and Mr. Falconer read it to him.
THE DEATH OF PHILEMON{1}
1 Suidas: sub voce (Greek) , Apuleius: Florid, 16. Closed was Philemon's hundredth year: The theatre was thronged to hear His last completed play: In the mid scene, a sudden rain Dispersed the crowd—to meet again On the succeeding day. He sought his home, and slept, and dreamed. ”

“ Burrowing into that idea, she came to think that if the project of making a common household with la Peyrade, then Celeste's husband, were carried out, the situation which was beginning to alarm her would become even worse. From that moment, and by sudden intuition, Felix Phellion, that good young man, with his head too full of mathematics ever to become a formidable rival to her sovereignty, seemed to her a far better match than the enterprising lawyer, and she was the first, on seeing the Phellion father and mother arrive without the son, to express regret at his absence. ”

“ Demetrius Phalereus — his history and character.
These favourable dispositions, on the part of the first Ptolemy, towards philosophy and the philosophers at Athens, appear to have been mainly instigated and guided by the Phalerean Demetrius: an Athenian citizen of good station, who enjoyed for ten years at Athens (while that city was subject to Kassander) full political ascendancy, but who was expelled about 307 B.C., by the increased force of the popular party, seconded by the successful invasion of 280Demetrius Poliorkêtês. ”