Ten Thousand

“ Ye have beheld their ribs laid bare, and their loins lacerated; the blood flowing forth all around; ten thousand forms of torture! Ye have seen human nature exhibiting that which is above nature, and crowns woven with blood! ”

“ THE FIFTIETH THOUSAND
Still they go, you will be glad to learn. Millennial Dawn Vol. I. is now in its fiftieth thousand. Forty thousand have already gone out, and ten thousand more are now being printed and bound. ”

“ “I think that if I’m still here in ten thousand years, I’m going to be crazy as hell. Ten thousand years, pal! Ten thousand years ago, the state-of-the-art was a goat. You really think you’re going to be anything recognizably human in a hundred centuries? ”

“ The length of time implied by the millennium is a period of multiple completeness which is represented by a thousand, the cube of ten, the symbol of a duration that is of great but indefinite extent, covering a long period of time, stretching to untold generations, during which the rule of Christ shall be triumphantly established upon the earth.543 The chief thought in the thousand years is doubtless that of great and enduring victory. ”

“ It contains a translation by her hand from the German of Professor C. Witt’s version of the Retreat of the Ten Thousand.
Such a book ought, I think, no less than its predecessors The Myths of Hellas, The Tale of Troy, and The Wanderings of Ulysses, to become a favourite with those youthful readers, to whom it is primarily addressed. Indeed, considering the nature of the history, older persons may perhaps find an interest in it. ”

“ To one who had never made more than five thousand a year himself, it was inspiring to explain before dozens of pop-eyed and admiring morons how they could make ten thousand—fifty thousand—a million a year, and all this by the Wonder Power of Suggestion, by Aggressive Personality, by the Divine Rhythm, in fact by merely releasing the Inner Self-shine. ”

“ I have often admonished my pupils to count ten before speaking. Were I you, Mr. Philander, I should count at least a thousand, and then maintain a discreet silence." ”

“ Our forefathers overcame that army by sea and by land, and the glorious results of their victories continue to this very day. To this day our cities are free, and over us we acknowledge no other lords but only the eternal gods. ”

“ But it is evident, that these bursts of universal distress are more dreaded than felt; thousands, and ten thousands, flourish in youth, and wither in age, without the knowledge of any other than domestick evils, and share the same pleasures and vexations, whether their kings are mild or cruel, whether the armies of their country pursue their enemies, or retreat before them. ”

“ MILLENARIANS are those who believe, according to an ancient tradition in the church, grounded on some doubtful texts in the book of Revelation and other scriptures, that our Saviour shall reign a thousand years with the faithful upon earth after the first resurrection, before the full completion of final happiness; and their name, taken from the Latin word mille, a thousand,” has a direct allusion to the duration of this spiritual empire, which is styled the millennium. ”

“ If we were mad enough to think of taking your life, we should be destroying our best friend, and should expose ourselves to the fury of the Great King who would hasten to avenge your death.
‘And now I will tell you what services we can render in return for your friendship. We know that you are harassed by the Mysians, the Pisidians and other nations, and moreover that the Egyptians have risen against you. But if we Hellenes are your friends, and fight as comrades by your side, what people can hope to withstand you? ”

“ The twenty-five millions without the gates gazed at the hundred thousand within, and the more they gazed the louder and more bitter became their comment, the dimmer and the more tawdry did the glitter of it all appear to them, and the weaker and more half-hearted became the attitude of the one hundred thousand as they attempted by insolence and superciliousness to maintain the pose of their inherited superiority. ”

“ Without you I can neither help a friend nor harm an enemy.’
On hearing these words, the soldiers felt perfectly satisfied, and at once made peace with their general. Moreover two thousand men, belonging to two other companies, left the generals under whom they had enlisted, in order to join the company of Clearchus. For they believed that having once said that he would not march against the Great King, Clearchus would hold to his resolution whatever happened, whereas it seemed very possible that the other officers might be won over by Cyrus, notwithstanding their present protests. ”

“ After conferring with the other generals, Clearchus answered, ‘We knew not that Cyrus intended to lead us against the Great King. But when he who had shown us much kindness was in need of our help, we should have been shamed before gods and men had we then deserted him. Cyrus is now dead, and we have no further quarrel with the King, nor any wish to injure his subjects. If we are allowed to go on our way in peace, we will return quietly to our home, and for any kindness that we may receive we shall prove ourselves grateful. ”

“ The Hellenes were in the position of a man whose path lies through a bog. After he has advanced some little way, he begins to consider whether it would not be better to turn back, but finding that this is just as difficult as to go forward, he thinks it a pity to waste the effort he has already made, and decides to continue.
So to the Hellenes it seemed that to return promised to be no less dangerous than to advance. The more clear-sighted were by this time perfectly aware that whatever Cyrus might say, or refrain from saying, his ultimate design was to proclaim war against the Great King. ”

“ How then our era? (These same psychologists pinpoint people's spirits rise in the opening years of a new century.) Now we're poised for the "really big one": the cataclysm. What a boon for the absurdists. Peaches and cream -- not just one century dangling but the culmination of ten. There's even a word for it. Millenium, I'll say it again. Better yet, a mere two millenia since Christ's departure, we are poised again on the threshold. Half & half. Like a party twelve pack -- six of one, half dozen of the other. ”

“ About nine hundred thousand were brought in the sixteenth century, three million in the seventeenth century, seven million in the eighteenth century, and another four million in the nineteenth century. ”

“ There was however one empire, that of Persia, in which the title of Great carried with it no distinction, for in this country every king was called the Great King, not because it was supposed that his nature was more noble or his actions more splendid than those of other men, but because he was lord of a vast empire, greater than had ever yet been seen upon the face of the earth. ”

“ The next country through which the Hellenes had to make their way was inhabited by the Chalybeans, who like the Taochians, were a free people, not subject to the Great King. In their country were iron mines which they had worked from the most ancient times, and they knew how to smelt the iron and make it into steel. ”

“ From the Great King we can look for nothing but fury and vengeance, for we came hither to unseat him from his throne.
‘Nevertheless it seems to me that our condition is not such that we should give way to despair, for the gods are angry with the Barbarians because they have broken the peace they swore to maintain. The gods will therefore be on our side. Moreover we can endure frost and heat better than the weakly Persians, and are in every way, thank the gods, made of better stuff. ”

“ A thousand, please.
Thousand? A lakh would give me ease.
A kingdom's power would satisfy
The lakh-lord. Kings would own the sky.
The hair grows old with aging years;
The teeth grow old, the eyes and ears. ”

“ It may seem strange that one satrap should have been able to wage war against another, whilst all the time both continued to be subjects of the Great King. But in point of fact, such rivalries between neighbouring satraps were rather encouraged than otherwise by the Great Kings, who lived in constant fear lest one or other of the great lords should take it into his head to make himself an independent sovereign, and consequently felt more secure when they were occupied in quarrelling among themselves. ”

“ Thus, of a hundred thousand persons born in this country, it has been ascertained that a fourth of them die before they have reached their fifth year; and one-half before they have reached their fiftieth year. One thousand one hundred will reach their ninetieth year. Sixteen will live to a hundred. And only two persons out of the hundred thousand—like the last barks of an innumerable convoy, will reach the advanced and helpless age of a hundred and five years. ”

“ As conquered nations they were not expected to have any attachment to the King, or any interest in the welfare of the empire, and although now and again services rendered to the King would be rewarded by overwhelming favours, yet the means chiefly relied upon for securing good behaviour was the certainty that every offence would meet with prompt and barbarous punishment. Not only criminals, but even persons merely suspected of having committed crimes, were put to death in the most horrible manner. ”

“ There is a Persian proverb that ‘the King has many eyes and ears.’ In every state the king must have means of knowing through his trusted officers, who see and hear for him, what is going on among the people. But in Persia the arrangements for obtaining information of this kind were reduced to a science. Satraps10 and people alike were constantly watched by a body of spies, and so secretly was this done that it was not even known who were the officers employed. ”

“ Won't you sit down? I hope, Miss Staunton, nothing will induce your good mother to move from here. I will do everything in my power to make her comfortable."
"You must understand," said Effie, "that in future she only pays fifteen shillings a week without extras. My sisters Agnes and Katie are quite old enough to do all the waiting which my mother requires. In fact they must do so, for we can't afford to pay a penny more." ”

“ According to the computation of philosophers, the population of the world may be reckoned in round numbers at just one thousand millions; of which number the annual mortality, at the low rate of three in a hundred, is thirty millions—and that without counting the extra million or two knocked on the head in the wars. ”

“ The King’s party were anxious to sow dissension between the allies, in order that the Hellenes might be utterly without friends. To this end, promises of free pardon to all subjects of the Great King who would now return to their duty, were diligently circulated, and Tissaphernes was careful to put off his coming, so that the Persians of the King’s army might have time to alienate Ariæus and his men from their former friends. ”

“ What makes you? Do you judge from the manner in which you are getting along now? How many people are being born a year? About fifty millions. How many are you converting a year, really, truthfully? Five or six thousand. ”

“ Besides, if a hundred is [Pg 358] sometimes used for totality, as when the Lord said by way of promise to him that left all and followed Him, "He shall receive in this world an hundredfold;" [704] of which the apostle gives, as it were, an explanation when he says, "As having nothing, yet possessing all things," [705] —for even of old it had been said, The whole world is the wealth of a believer,—with how much greater reason is a thousand put for totality since it is the cube, while the other is only the square? ”

“ King, lords, and aristocrats; landholders, tithe-collectors, church and state, thank God, will soon be overthrown, and the golden age revived—the millennium—the true millennium—not what your poor mother talked about. ”

“ TRUTH.
“A century is a formula; an epoch is an expressed thought. One such thought-expressed civilization passes to another. The centuries are the phrases of civilization; what she says here she does not repeat there. But these mysterious phrases are linked together: logic—the logos—is within them, and their series constitutes progress. In all these, phrase expressions of a single thought, the divine thought, we are slowly deciphering the word fraternity.
“All light is at some point condensed into a flame; likewise every epoch is condensed in a man. ”

“ Let us talk of our college days, of our travels, of war, of soldiers, and of Italy!
XII.
We old classmates will many of us doubtless live to see the twentieth century. Strange thought! I know, of course, that the transition from nineteen hundred to nineteen hundred and one will seem as natural as that from ninety-nine to a hundred, or from this year to next. And yet it seems to me that to see the first dawn of the new century will be like reaching the summit of some high mountain, and looking out over new countries and new horizons. ”

“ This sentiment, now fondly cherished by more than ten millions of people, will be transmitted, with unabated vigor, down the tide of time, through the countless millions who are destined to inhabit this continent, to the latest posterity. ”

“ Its centenary draws nigh; and how fruitful in good to mankind has been that century which is now drawing to a close! It is unnecessary to repeat the hackneyed phrases which tell of the progress of the world during the last hundred years. Every newspaper speaks of it. Everybody with open eyes observes it. ”

“ Admit that there was nine hundred millions at the commencement of creation, and this number had passed away every thirty years for two hundred generations, their whole number would only amount to 180,000,000,000—one hundred and eighty thousand millions, a little more than one-third of the mansions in this building; four hundred and eighty-four to every human being now on the earth. ”

“ If we could affix to each century as characteristic a presentment as those portraits do of the steel-clad hero of Towton, or the be-wigged, be-buckled courtier of George the Second, our object would be gained. We should see a whole history in a glance at a century’s face. If it were peculiarly marked by nature or accident, so much the more easy would it be to recognise the likeness. If the century was a warlike, quarrelsome century, and had scars across its brow ”