Plebeian

“ They said that it was not right that the two magistrates who were chosen to govern Rome every year should always be men of the upper class. One ought to be a commoner, or plebeian. Camillus thought it was wise to grant this, and each year one consul was elected by the votes of the patricians and one by the votes of the commoners. This is what happens in politics. One class want one thing, and one class want another; and the wisest heads among the people have to plan a way to please as many of the citizens as possible. ”

“ Strife between Patricians and Plebeians.—The people and the plebs were like two distinct peoples, one of masters, the other of subjects. And yet the plebeians were much like the patricians. Soldiers, like them, they served in the army at their own cost and suffered death in the service of the Roman people; peasants like them, they lived on their domains. Many of the plebeians were rich and of ancient family. The only difference was that they were descended from a great family of some conquered Latin city, while the patricians were the scions of an old family in the conquering city. ”

“ To such a degree of madness the nobility of this age is come! After dinner I went up to Sir Thomas Crew, who lies there not very well in his head, being troubled with vapours and fits of dizziness: and there I sat talking with him all the afternoon from one discourse to another, the most was upon the unhappy posture of things at this time; that the King do mind nothing but pleasures, and hates the very sight or thoughts of business ”

“ How few there are in the world who retain, after a certain age, the character originally natural to them! We all get, as it were, a second skin; the little foibles, propensities, eccentricities, we first indulged through affectation, conglomerate and encrust till the artificiality grows into nature.
“Pelham,” said Vincent, with a cold smile, “the day will be your’s; the battle is not to the strong—the whigs will triumph. ”

“ She wept bitterly, exclaiming, that some one had conveyed away her treasure; and the surprise occasioned by the intelligence, was not less, when it became known that his bed was also missing. Some said that he had fled: others, that he was murdered. Plebeus, however, continued his clamour at the gate. "Bring out your pilgrim; to-day I will present his head to the king." Now while all was bustle and enquiry in the palace, the fisherman made his way to the royal seat, and said, "Grieve not, my lord, for the loss of the pilgrim. Fishing last night in the sea, I observed him floating upon a bed. ”

“ Not a mote in the beam, not an herb on the mountain, not a pebble on the shore, not a seed far-blown into the wilderness, but contributes to the lore that seeks in all the true principle of life—the beautiful—the joyous—the immortal. ”

“ For a week after his arrival, as if my tormentors were bent on convincing my almost only friend that I was a fool or a juggler, we had no disturbance at all beyond the ordinary rappings. These, the reverend gentleman confessed were of a singular nature, but expressed a polite desire to see some of the extraordinary manifestations of which I had written him. ”

“ We are made as the dregs of this world. Just as it is written: 'The filthy just one is before the wicked.' As the offscouring of all things until now. Of all the most humble and subjected. 14 I write these things not to confound you, but to admonish you as my dearest children. They are able to be confounded from their glory, if they do not free themselves: for he does not wish for their shame, but perfection. 15 For if ten thousand teachers you have in Christ, yet you have not many fathers. All who now minister to a child, are not able to call themselves fathers. ”

“ I never heard so much vanity from a man in my life; so, being now weary of him, we parted, and I took coach, and carried Creed to the Temple. There set him down, and to my office, where busy late till my eyes begun to ake, and then home to supper: a pullet, with good sauce, to my liking, and then to play on the flageolet with my wife, which she now does very prettily, and so to bed. ”

“ Thou wilt take the pebbles, one by one, and when thy opposer shall make war with thee, thou wilt teach him this lesson: That no wisdom is found in pebbles, and thou wilt say to him, ‘silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, give I unto thee. Take this sling and these pebbles, and when thou art without wrong, cast them at me, for I too, am poor and needy, and what thou doest, do as thy wisdom shall direct.’ Then shalt thou find thy sling and pebbles retained by thee, and thy opposer will be thy follower in the great reform of mind. ”

“ Pelagianism was the heresy of the monk Pelagius, who flourished in the fourth century. He contested the doctrine of original sin, as imputed to all mankind from the fall of Adam, and taught that the grace of God is accorded to us in proportion to our merits. ”

“ I took my friend James Pelple down with me for an afternoon's jaunt, to give the priest a call in his new house; for he had moved since last I saw him. Pelple knew of Father Johnson by hearsay, and disapproved strongly. There is no other word to describe his feelings: 'A good man, yes,' he would remark. 'But if all you tell me, and the half of what I hear from others, is true, he is much too lax. His ritual——'
'I've never been to his place,' I interrupted. 'I know him only as the man. As a man, I love him, as you know; as a priest, I admire him. ”

“ Being wearied with looking upon a company of ugly women, Creed and I went away, and took coach and through Cheapside, and there saw the pageants, which were very silly, and thence to the Temple, where meeting Greatorex, he and we to Hercules Pillars, there to show me the manner of his going about of draining of fenns, which I desired much to know, but it did not appear very satisfactory to me, as he discoursed it, and I doubt he will faile in it. ”

“ So at night called my wife at my Lady's, and so home. To my office and there made up my month's account, which, God be praised! rose to L1300. Which I bless God for. So after 12 o'clock home to supper and to bed. I find Creed mightily transported by my Lord of Falmouth's kind words to him, and saying that he hath a place in his intention for him, which he believes will be considerable. A witty man he is in every respect, but of no good nature, nor a man ordinarily to be dealt with. ”

“ There is as little of the spirit of a stranger and pilgrim in Pepys, even in his most pathetic hours, as there is in John Bunyan the spirit of a man at home, even in his securest. It was a very pagan time, and Pepys is the pagan par excellence of that time, the bright and shining example of the pagan spirit of England. ”

“ Pelagius, when afterward pressed with passages of Scripture, also admitted this supernatural grace; but he placed it solely in the external teaching of the law: though we affirm that God offers his word to men, yet we likewise affirm that he inwardly causes the understanding to believe. Subsequently Pelagius joined to this external grace that by which sins are pardoned: we acknowledge not only the grace by which sins are forgiven, but also that by which men are assisted to refrain from the commission of sin. ”

“ Even with people who do not know them by sight and have not felt the sweet influences of the Pleiades, there is a vague memory of some story about a lost Pleiad that stirs an emotion suggesting something romantic and sad. The Pleiades form in truth a delightful group of twinkling unfathomable stars, singularly fascinating and singularly persistent in their brilliancy. ”

“ Pelagius was an ardent churchman, a strict ascetic, and a believer in sacramental grace. The earlier church had reflected but little on the questions raised by him. "Unde factum est ut de gratia Dei quid sentirent breviter ac transeuntes attingerent." Free will equipped with sacraments, the Christian religion a "New Law," predestination founded upon prescience, fairly represent the implicit pre-Augustinian view of the Christian life and its relation to the mystery of Divine election. ”

“ PLEIAD (Gr. Πλειάς) , in Greek literature, the name given (by analogy from Pleiades, below) by the Alexandrian critics to seven tragic poets who flourished during the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus (285–247 B.C.) . In French literature, in addition to the Pleiad of Charlemagne, there were two famous groups of the kind. ”

“ And there moving across the green toward the bed of bowing ferns went the two, Avis and Lawrence Knight, and the whole picture had about it such an air of Paradise that I turned to Pelleas with happy tears.
“Pelleas,” I said, “we are all in a kind of enchantment, aren’t we—aren’t we? To be happy one has only to find a certain spell, for oneself or for some one else. ”

“ Pepys was not the first human being to make his confession in an empty confessional. Criminals, lovers and other egoists, for lack of a priest, will make their confessions to a stone wall or a tree. There is no more mystery in it than in the singing of birds. The motive may be either to obtain discharge from the sense of guilt or a desire to save and store up the very echoes and last drops of pleasure. Human beings keep diaries for as many different reasons as they write lyric poems. With Pepys, I fancy, the main motive was a simple happiness in chewing the cud of pleasure. ”

“ When the pew is filled to overflowing, then, sometimes, you are crowded out into her pew. Embarrassed of mien, you decorously slide into your new location, she receiving your presence with a shrug and a sniff, and you growing redder and redder as you imagine that all the congregation must be reading your secret. ”

“ I inquired, "to converse with you on equal terms, without making use of any titles?"
"That is what I myself wish you to do," was the reply. "I have at least reaped one advantage from adversity; I have learnt to smile at all these vanities. I assure you that I value myself more upon being a man, than having been born a prince." ”

“ North, who was with my Lord at sea; and he, of his own accord, was so silly as to tell me he is married; and for her quality (being a Lord's daughter, my Lord Grey) , and person, and beauty, and years, and estate, and disposition, he is the happiest man in the world. I am sure he is an ugly fellow; but a good scholar and sober gentleman ”

“ Any man may conceive, and many will do the things which Pepys did: but not record them, complacently, with the grin of relish. Why on earth did he do that? I have a suggestion to make, though I am not certain that it meets the whole case. My first opinion was that he derived that cerebral excitation out of his details which it is to be supposed the lad may who defaces walls with a stump of pencil, or the lover who, writing about kisses, or craving them as he writes, ends up his letter with a pullulation of little crosses—paraphrases of his passion. ”

“ Pelagians. A denomination which arose in the fifth century, so called from Pelagius, a monk, who looked upon the doctrines which were commonly received, concerning the original corruption of human nature, and the necessity of divine grace [pg 131] to enlighten the understanding and purify the heart, as prejudicial to the progress of holiness and virtue, and tending to establish mankind in a presumptuous and fatal security. ”

“ His answer, that the unbaptized infant is excluded, not from eternal life, but only from the kingdom of heaven, was a relic of Milleniarism with which the Eastern church had even less sympathy than the West. Pelagius allowed that man can do no good thing without the grace of God. ”

“ Turner, staid with her a little while, then she went into the court to a christening and we to my father's, where I wrote some notes for my brother John to give to the Mercers' to-morrow, it being the day of their apposition. After supper home, and before going to bed I staid writing of this day its passages, while a drum came by, beating of a strange manner of beat, now and then a single stroke, which my wife and I wondered at, what the meaning of it should be. ”

“ Thence to White Hall, and met with Creed, and I took him to the Harp and Balls, and there drank a cup of ale, he and I alone, and discoursed of matters; and I perceive by him that he makes no doubt but that all will turn to the old religion, for these people cannot hold things in their hands, nor prevent its coming to that; and by his discourse fits himself for it, and would have my Lord Sandwich do so, too, and me. ”

“ Clerke and her Frenchman, who sings well, home, and thence home ourselves, talking much of what we had observed to-day of the poor household stuff of Mrs. Clerke and mere show and flutter that she makes in the world; and pleasing myself in my own house and manner of living more than ever I did by seeing how much better and more substantially I live than others do. So to supper and bed. ”

“ My pain was gone again that I had yesterday, blessed be God. This day the month ends, I in very good health, and all the world in a merry mood because of the King's coming. This day I began to teach Mr. Edward; who I find to have a very good foundation laid for his Latin by Mr. Fuller. I expect every minute to hear how my poor wife do. I find myself in all things well as to body and mind, but troubled for the absence of my wife. ”

“ Philip murmured, "a chap with a mind like Harry's! Lord, it was as hard as a knife! Poor old devil, I suppose he'll wake up in a month and find himself up to the neck! Who's left? That's what I want to know! All the old landmarks are washed away. What the hell is a chap to do? ”

“ Pelagius maintains, expressly and by implication, that it is the human will which takes the initiative, and is the determining factor in the salvation of the individual; while the Church maintains that it is the divine will that takes the initiative by renewing and enabling the human will to accept and use the aid or grace offered. ”