Vaura

“ Vaura had spent so much of her life with her uncle and godmother, that the men they loved to have about them had probably spoilt her taste for the very young men of to-day. Both she and her godmother, had many friendships among men, believing the interchange of thought to be mutually improving. Indeed, in most cases they trusted their faithfulness, their sincerity, more than that of their own sex. And, alas! with good reason, men having a larger share of that greatest of gifts, charity! ”

“ Vaura drew a long breath as she turned away, saying:
"The man who painted the figure of the Christ in its God-like sanctity of expression, must have been inspired. What a volume of sermons it preaches!"
As the Italian had tickets of admission to the Tower of St. Peter's, Vaura decided to make the ascent. The double walls of the dome are passed through as quickly as possible, as Vaura's time is short. But the view from the top! who can describe it? Not I; my pen falls lifeless; it would take a Moore to sing of; a Byron to immortalise; a Longfellow, a Whittier or a Tennyson to make an idyl of ”

“ Haughton tells me you are going to Italy for change," he said kindly.
"Yes, I don't feel quite myself, Lionel; and Italy will be sun-warm, what I require, my physician tells me; but the air on the water has given me such an apetite, I feel better already."
"The very scene we are in is enough to cure one; so bright, so gay, chic in every way," said Vaura.
"Yes, 'tis brimful of animation," said Trevalyon; and the salle a manger is preferable to privacy; when one travels, 'tis more of a change to live its life, the continuous noise, bustle and excitement take one out of oneself." ”

“ Ere many more suns have risen I turn my face southwards to that old art world, sunny Italy, which I love well. But there one sometimes has a feeling of sadness in thinking of what she was, especially her Rome, which one does not experience here. I am at one with your great Victor Hugo when he says, 'It is in Paris that the beating of Europe's heart is felt. Paris is the city of cities. Paris is the city of men. There has been an Athens, there has been a Rome, there is a Paris.'"
Here Vaura seated herself. ”

“ Infallible are the laws of Varuna: the moon kindles itself and walks through the night.
“Varuna has traced out paths for the sun: he has thrown forwards the fluctuating torrent of rivers. He has dug out the wide and rapid beds where the waves of the days, let loose, unroll themselves in their order.
“He has put strength into the horse, milk into the cow, intellect into the heart, Agni [43] into the waters, the sun in the sky, soma [44] into the stone.
“The wind is thy breath, O Varuna! which roars in the atmosphere, like the ox in the meadow. ”

“ Strike us not, Varuna, with those dread weapons which, Asura, at thy bidding wound the sinner. Let us not pass away from light to exile. Scatter, that we may live, the men who hate us 8. O mighty Varuna, now and hereafter, even as of old, will we speak forth our worship. For in thyself, invincible God, thy statutes never to be moved are fixed as on a mountain. 9. Move far from me what sins I have committed: let me not suffer, King, for guilt of others. Full many a morn remains to dawn upon us: in these, O Varuna, while we live direct us. ”

“ He who should leap over the sky and beyond it, would not escape the king Varuna: he has his spies, the spies of the heavens, who go through the world; he has his thousand eyes which look on the earth. The king Varuna sees everything, all that which is between the two worlds and beyond them: he reckons the winking of the eye of all creatures: The world is in his hand like the dice in the hand of the gamester. Let thy sevenfold bands, O Varuna, let thy bands of wrath which are thrice linked together, let them enfold the man with a lying tongue, let them leave free the man with a truthful tongue! ”

“ VARUNA, in early Hindu mythology, the greatest, with Indra, of the gods of the Rig Veda. He is invoked with his double Mitra in some dozen hymns. As contrasted with Indra the war god, Varuna is the lord of the natural laws, the up- holder of the physical and moral order of the universe. His power is limitless, his anger at wrong-doing unassuageable, and he is omniscient. He makes the sunshine; the wind is his breath; river valleys are hollowed out at his command. Unlike Indra, Varuna has no myths related of him. ”

“ It is by Varuna's power that they stand firm. He has established the sun 'like a tree,' i.e., like a support, and 'made a path for it.' [63] He has a thousand remedies for ills; to his realm not even the birds can ascend, nor wind or swift waters attain. It is in accordance with the changeless order [64] of Varuna that the stars and the moon go their regular course; he gives long life and releases from harm, from wrong, and from sin. [65]
Varuna is the most exalted of those gods whose origin is physical. His realm is all above us; the sun and stars are his eyes ”

“ With the dawn of the next day they resumed their progress, and were at no great distance from their stronghold of Aliso when they found their progress arrested by fresh tribes, who assailed them with murderous fury. On they struggled, fighting, dying, marking every step of the route with their dead. Varus, now reduced to despair, and seeing only slaughter or captivity before him, threw himself on his sword, and died in the midst of those whom his blind confidence had led to destruction. ”

“ The points of the heavens, the Earth, and all the Mountains, as also every species of aquatic animals, all worship Varuna there. And various tribes of Gandharvas and Apsaras, devoted to music, both vocal and instrumental, wait upon Varuna, singing eulogistic hymns unto him. And all those mountains that are noted for being both delightful and rich in jewels, wait (in their personified forms) in that Sabha, enjoying sweet converse with one another. ”

“ And Víravara went on persistently in the direction of the weeping, and reached a tank outside the city, and saw there that woman in the middle of the water uttering this lament, “Hero! merciful man! Generous man! How can I live without you?” And Víravara, who was followed by the king, said with astonishment, “Who are you, and why do you thus weep?”—Then she answered him, “Dear Víravara, know that I am this earth, and king Śúdraka is now my righteous lord, but on the third day from this his death will take place, and whence shall I obtain such another lord? ”

“ Víravara ! What man is as devoted to his sovereign as thou, who, by the sacrifice of thy noble only son, hast bestowed on this king Śúdraka life and a kingdom?" Then that young girl Víravatí, the daughter of Víravara, came up, and embraced the head of her slain brother, and weeping, blinded with excessive grief, she broke her heart and so died. And the king saw and heard all this from his concealment.
Then Víravara's wife Dharmavatí said to him, " We have ensured the prosperity of the king, so now I have something to say to you. ”

“ As an historian he is most untrustworthy, but there are many gaps in Roman history (e.g. owing to the lost books of Livy) which he helps to supply. His style shows all the faults of his age and rhetorical training; his work was probably intended to be a commonplace-book for students and teachers of rhetoric.
M. TERENTIUS VARRO, 116-27 B.C. 1. Life. VARRO.
Born at Reate, in the Sabine territory, which was the nurse of all manly virtues, Varro was brought up in the good old-fashioned way. ”

“ Those whose works have been preserved are only a few out of a larger circle who worked each in his own province of art, and listened to and criticised the works of their [pg 50] friends. Of the poets belonging to this circle whose works have not reached us, Varius, the older contemporary and life-long friend of Virgil, first acquired distinction as a writer of that kind of epic peculiar to Rome which treated of contemporary subjects and was dedicated to the personal glory of some great man. ”

“ Any stranger who tried to thread this aquatic forest without the aid of a native guide would soon lose himself among the armies of itá palm, and perish miserably of hunger. Yet this very tree supplies to the Waraus of the Orinoco not only all the necessaries, but the luxuries of life, and were the whole tribe to be cut off from the mainland, they could support themselves without the least difficulty, the itá palm supplying house, food, drink, clothing, and furniture.
First, as to the house. The Warau requires for a house nothing but a floor and a roof. ”

“ THE VIHARA OF TRUTH
The town of Bágh, begun in a little valley, had gradually spread, up an open hillside looking toward the southeast, and over and beyond the jungle, to the Narmáda plain. The great Viharas were two or three miles south of the village, built, all nine of them, in the flat of a ravine, with wooded hillsides rising abruptly on either side. It was not until the morning after their view from the hilltop that Hushka and Oman made their appearance here. They had arrived in Bágh at dusk the evening before, unusually wearied by an unusual day’s toil. ”

“ Again Víravara said, “I am here.” And while the king was lost in admiration at seeing his courage, he suddenly heard a woman weeping in the distance, distracted with despair, uttering only the piteous sound of wailing. When the king heard that, pity arose in his mind, and he said to himself, “There is no oppressed person in my kingdom, no poor or afflicted person; so who is this woman, that is thus weeping alone at night?” Then he gave this order to Víravara, who was alone below, “Listen, Víravara; there is some woman weeping in the distance ”

“ Contrary to the usual strict principles of Roman discipline, Varus had suffered his army to be accompanied and impeded by an immense train of baggage-waggons, and by a rabble of camp followers; as if his troops had been merely changing their quarters in a friendly country. When the long array quitted the firm level ground, and began to wind its way among the woods, the marshes, and the ravines, the difficulties of the march, even without the intervention of an armed foe, became fearfully apparent. ”

“ Both the idea and the name of Varuna as a god of sky were known to the ancestors of the Aryan nations before the Indo-Aryans and the Iranians separated. In that remote period Varuna was the highest and holiest of the gods, and represented the spiritual aspect of religion. After the separation had taken place, this deity of righteousness was translated in Iran into Ahura Mazda, the supreme deity, while to the Hindu Varuna the Vedic bard sang:—
"O Varuna! the birds that fly have not attained thy power or thy vigour; the water which flows ceaselessly and the moving wind do not surpass thy speed. ”

“ I believe the gods are ever faithful to the faithful.'
'What good citizen, too,' added Varus, 'but must lament to witness the undermining, and supplanting of those venerable forms, under which this universal empire has grown to its present height of power? He is scarcely a Roman who denies the gods of Rome, however observant he may be of her laws and other institutions. Religion is her greatest law.'
'These are hard questions,' said the Emperor. 'For, know you not, that some of our noblest, and fairest, and most beloved, have written themselves followers of this Gallilean God? ”

“ Rava was very still, her head bent over her work, her face colorless and dull. Alas! she thought with sudden heaviness of heart, he is but a Viracocha, and can be naught else. No thought of love but for his sword, no passion but for war. He is like his kind—less men than gods of destruction; gifted with power and wisdom, but cursed with heartlessness. ”

“ Glad to escape from such weird surroundings, yet feeling the need of rest, she drew aside among the wild caper-bushes, and sat down, wiping the beads of perspiration from her forehead with the corner of her veil. It felt quite hot against the damp skin, cooled by the fierce, dry wind that even in this sheltered spot drove the dust along in swirls. She drew her veil over her head and sat still as a statue, in the curiously drooping attitude which to Western eyes suggests absorbing grief; but Veru's mind was full of a great joy, which gained no little sweetness from the thought of revenge. ”

“ Virro will order to be served to himself and his brother Virros such noble apples, on whose fragrance alone you are allowed to revel; such as the eternal autumn of the Phæacians produced; or such as you might fancy purloined from the African sisters. You feast upon some shriveled windfall, such as is munched at the ramparts by him that is armed with buckler and helmet: and, in dread of the lash, learns to hurl his javelin from the shaggy goat's [234] back.
You may imagine, perhaps, that Virro does all this from stinginess. No! his very object is to vex you. ”

“ The cry of the Empress as the little serpent stung her cheek brought a swarm of attendants and slaves into the room, among them black Juba and the officer of the guard who was responsible for the Empress' safety. Valeria had fainted and lay pale as ashes on her couch, a crimson stream flowing from her cheek.
"Dear heart!" exclaimed Juba, with an ostentatious exhibition of well-feigned grief, "let her inhale this fragrant elixir. It is a potent restorative in such deadly faints," and she attempted to complete her desperate crime by thrusting the poisonous perfume under Valeria's nostrils. ”

“ In Ulro beneath Beulah where the Dead wail Night & Day
40 Luvah was cast into the Furnaces of affliction & sealed
And Vala fed in cruel delight, the furnaces with fire
Stern Urizen beheld urg'd by necessity to keep
The evil day afar, & if perchance with iron power
He might avert his own despair; in woe & fear he saw ”