Thomas Sully

“ Thomas Reid applies his principle of common sense to the problem of beauty saying that objects of beauty agree not only in producing a certain agreeable emotion, but in the excitation along with this emotion of a belief that they possess some perfectionReid. or excellence, that beauty exists in the objects independently our minds. His theory of beauty is severely spiritual. All beauty resides primarily in the faculties of the mind, intellectual and moral. ”

“ Sully was not popular. He was hated by most Roman Catholics because he was a Protestant, by most Protestants because he was faithful to the king, and by all because he was a favourite, and selfish, obstinate and rude. He amassed a large personal fortune, and his jealousy of all other ministers and favourites was extravagant. Nevertheless he was an excellent man of business, inexorable in punishing malversation and dishonesty on the part of others, and opposed to the ruinous court expenditure which was the bane of almost all European monarchies in his day. ”

“ All this the poor monster heard. He even saw Suliman sitting upon his own throne, and trying to calm the populace by representing to them that it was not certain Prince Cherry was dead, that he might return one day to re-assume with honour the crown which Suliman only consented to wear as a sort of viceroy.
"I know his heart," said the honest and faithful old man; "it is tainted, but not corrupt. If alive, he may reform yet, and be all his father over again to you, his people, whom he has caused to suffer so much." ”

“ It does not greatly matter, for our present purpose, what precise view we are to take of Sulla's personal character and genius. The high-born voluptuary who, tearing himself away from dinner-parties and actresses, condescends to become the greatest soldier and then the greatest statesman of his age, and finally, having made these sacrifices, returns to the pursuits of his choice, has naturally exercised the imagination of literary artists. ”

“ Sulla ruled as a conqueror until it pleased him to take an official title, when he commanded the people to elect him Dictator, for such term as he might judge to be fit. They obeyed. As Dictator, he proceeded to remodel the Roman constitution by a series of laws which were adopted at his command. One of these laws enfranchised 10,000 slaves and made them citizens. Another took a way from the tribunes a great part of their powers; allowed none but members of the senate to be candidates for the office, and no person once a tribune to hold a curule office. ”

“ But this “design” has been attributed rather to the imagination of Sully himself than to the more practical policy of the king.
No figure in France has been more popular than that of “Henry the Great.” He was affable to the point of familiarity, quick-witted like a true Gascon, good-hearted, indulgent, yet skilled in reading the character of those around him, and he could at times show himself severe and unyielding. His courage amounted almost to recklessness. He was a better soldier than strategist. ”

“ But what shall we say to Sulla himself? He had the form of a man; his limbs were well-shapen; his mind was clever; yet his deeds were brutal. When he arrived in Italy he made his way toward Rome. It was his intention to crush down the people's party—the plebeians. He belonged to the upper class, or patricians. All over Italy there were brave and honest men who worked hard in field or trade, or served in the Roman armies, and yet were not allowed to rank as freemen, and had no vote in public affairs. Many of these men had raised a rebellion, and some had received the title of freemen ”

“ The king now resolved, notwithstanding strong opposition from the Catholics, to place his illustrious Protestant friend, Sully, at the head of the ministry of finance. Sully entered upon his Herculean task with shrewdness which no cunning could baffle, and with integrity which no threat or bribe could bias. ”

“ Sulla's whole soul must have recoiled from the coarse manners of the man under whom he first won distinction, and, while he scorned his motives, he must, as he saw him gradually floundering into villainy, have felt the serene superiority of a natural genius for vice. ”

“ Sulla was not one of the clumsy intriguers who laboriously lay up a store of favour and are easily detected in the attempt. He was a terrible man because his insight and his charm were a part of his very nature, as were also the dark current of ambition, scarcely acknowledged even by its possessor, and the surging tides of passion, carefully dammed by an exquisitely balanced intellect into a level stream, on which crowds might float and believe themselves to be victims or agents of an overmastering principle, not of a single man's caprice. ”

“ He seemed entirely unconscious that anything was happening around him.
"Captain Miner," said Al, hardly able to repress a laugh as he saluted, "General Sully says for you not to get too far ahead of the flanks. He is afraid you will be surrounded." ”

“ Fifty senators and a thousand knights (peers and gentlemen we should call them) were put to death, almost all of them without any kind of trial. Sulla himself was outlawed. But he had an army which he had led to victory and had enriched with prize-money, and which was entirely devoted to him; and he was not inclined to let his enemies triumph. He hastened back to Italy, and landed in the spring of 83. In the November of the following year, just outside the walls of Rome, was fought the final battle of the war. ”

“ Its face they would smash and its soul they would fill with a passion for riotous, brilliant, headstrong wildness. One loves Suler easily and gaily, and when I see how carelessly women accept him, they surprise and anger me. Yet under this carelessness is hidden, perhaps, caution. Suler is not reliable. What will he do to-morrow? He may throw a bomb or he may join a troupe of public-house minstrels. He has energy enough for three life-times, and fire of life—so much that he seems to sweat sparks like over-heated iron. ”

“ Of all men, too, Sulla had the best reason to appreciate the dangers to be feared from the growing independence of governors and generals in the provinces, and from the transformation of the old civic militia into a group of professional armies, devoted only to a successful leader, and with the weakest possible sense of allegiance to the state. He had himself, as proconsul of Asia, contemptuously and successfully defied the home government, and he, more than any other Roman general, had taught his soldiers to look only to their leader, and to think only of booty. ”

“ The fortunes amassed by an Aquillius, a Verres, a Lucullus, spoke as eloquently of Rome's rapacity abroad as did those of Crassus or Sulla in Italy. Such being the state of things under the government which Sulla strove to perpetuate, his character as a statesman deserves as strong reprobation as his conduct as a man. To lay down power from a sense of duty is one thing. Cynically to shrink from responsibility is another. The misery of the following half-century must be laid chiefly at Sulla's door. ”

“ Without Sulla's personal vices he might have played Sulla's part as a politician, and his atrocities in Spain as well as his remark on the death of Tiberius Gracchus—words breathing the very essence of a narrow swordsman's nature—showed that from bloodshed at all events he would not have shrunk. It is hard to respect such a man in spite of all his good qualities. ”

“ XCVI Now Sulla, as I have already said, after he came with his cavalry to Africa and the camp of Marius, although he was without previous experience and untrained in war, soon became the best soldier in the whole army. Moreover, he was courteous in his language to the soldiers, granted favours to many at their request and to others of his own accord, unwilling himself to accept favours and paying them more promptly than a debt of money. He himself never asked for payment, but rather strove to have as many men as possible in his debt. ”

“ Why did you tell me this story, Henry?” she adds in a plaintive tone, bursting into tears. “Am I not degraded enough already?”
“How, Gabrielle, this from you? when, spite of every obstacle, within a few weeks you will be crowned my queen?”
A knock is now heard at the door, and Sully enters. He looks hot and surly. He barely salutes the King, and scowls at Gabrielle, who instantly retreats to the farther corner of the room. Sully wears a threadbare doublet, his grey hair is uncombed over his forehead, and he carries some papers in his hand. ”

“ Sulla not only established his despotic power by unscrupulous violence, but in doing so called things by their right name with a certain cynical frankness, through which he has irreparably offended the great mass of the weakhearted who are more revolted at the name than at the thing, but through which, from the cool and dispassionate character of his crimes, he certainly appears to the moral judgment more revolting than the criminal acting from passion. ”

“ Sulla with a small army soon won a victory over the general of Mithradates, and Rome’s client-king was restored. An embassy from the Parthians now came to solicit alliance with Rome, and Sulla was the first Roman who held diplomatic intercourse with that remote people. In the year 91, which brought with it the imminent prospect of sweeping political change, with the enfranchisement of the Italian peoples, Sulla returned to Rome, and it was generally felt that he was the man to lead the conservative and aristocratic party. ”

“ CHAPTER XI TRAILING THE HOSTILES
"I wish I knew where I could get two or three more well-mounted orderlies, with courage and common sense," said General Sully the next day, as the army was wending its way through the rough, picturesque hill country along the Cannonball. "I haven't enough, and it's hard to tell whether a man can be depended upon until he has been tried."
The remark caused Al to prick up his ears.
"I know a man I think would suit you, General," said he.
"Who?" asked Sully.
"He is a private named Wallace Smith, in the Eighth Minnesota. I knew him at Fort Ridgely. ”

“ SULLY, MAXIMILIEN DE BÉTHUNE, Duc de (1560–1641) , French statesman, was born at the château of Rosny near Mantes, on the 13th of December 1560, of a noble family of Flemish descent. His father, François de Béthune, baron de Rosny, (1532–1575) , was the son of Jean de Béthune, to whom in 1529 his wife Anne de Melun brought as part of her dowry a seigneurie at Rosny-sur-Seine, which later (1601) was made a marquisate. Brought up in the Reformed faith, Maximilien was presented to Henry of Navarre in 1571 and was thenceforth attached to the future king of France. ”

“ Such was the news that came to Sulla as he was besieging Athens and in the greatest danger. The city appeared impregnable. His small army was reduced by wounds, disease, and the shortage of supplies: the danger that Mithridates would land and cut them off was immediate. They would then be between the devil and the deep sea. But Sulla’s iron will did not quail. The man whom Rome regarded as a creature of pleasure shared every hardship of the soldiers and encouraged them day and night by his personal courage and calm. ”

“ Sulla did not march immediately upon Italy, but went to Ædepsus, in Eubœa, for the benefit of the hot baths, though he did not limit himself to the waters, for he addicted himself to the spirits abounding in the neighbourhood. He amused himself in the society of those who are sometimes said to live upon their wits, though their existence is really derived from the want of wit in others. ”

“ Nothing lay farther from Sulla than systematic ambition. He had too much sense to regard, like the average aristocrats of his time, the inscription of his name in the roll of the consuls as the aim of his life; he was too indifferent and too little of an ideologue to be disposed voluntarily to engage in the reform of the rotten structure of the state. He remained—where birth and culture placed him—in the circle of genteel society, and passed through the usual routine of offices ”

“ The name of Sulla carried victory with it. The troops of Fimbria deserted their general, who put an end to his own life. Sulla now prepared to return to Italy. After exacting enormous sums from the wealthy cities of Asia, he left his legate, L. Licinius Murena, in command of the province of Asia, with two legions, and set sail with his own army to Athens. While preparing for his deadly struggle in Italy, he did not lose his interest in literature. He carried with him from Athens to Rome the valuable library of Apellicon of Teos, which contained most of the works of Aristotle and Theophrastus. ”

“ Sully put his horse to the gallop and rode swiftly toward the head of the approaching column. As he reached Captain Miner, he pulled up.
"Captain," he cried, "three Indians have killed Captain Feilner at the crossing of the Little Cheyenne, just ahead of us here. They rode north, across the creek. Take Company A and follow the cowardly assassins and bring them to me, dead or alive; mind you, dead or alive!" ”

“ But as these were mere windy words, it being well understood that Ali's fixed intention was to cut every throat among the Suliotes, whether of man, woman, or child,—nay, as he thought himself dismally ill-used by every hour's delay which interfered with the execution of that purpose,—what rational plan awaited the choice of the poor Suliotes, finding themselves in the centre of a whole hostile nation, and their own slender divisions cut off from communication with each other? What could people so circumstanced propose to themselves as a suitable resolution for their situation? ”