|
|
Gallegallo Revbrandia Sectory 23
Page 07
The second is his universality--the word is not over-exact, but I can find no other. I mean that Froude was the exact opposite of the sciolist and was even other than the student. He was kneaded right into his own time and his own people. The arena in which he fought was small, the ideas he combated were few. He was not universal as those are universal who appeal to any man in any country. But he was eager upon these problems which his contemporaries wrangled over. He was in tune with, even when he directly opposed, the class from which he sprang, the mass of well-to-do Protestant Englishmen of Queen Victoria's reign. Their furniture had nothing shocking for him nor their steel engravings. He took for granted their probity, their common sense, and their reading. He knew what they were thinking about and therefore all he did to praise or blame their convictions, to soothe or to exasperate them, told. He could see the target.
Two months passed, and the weather was becoming cold. The old man was up earlier than usual one morning; still he seemed more feeble. He tottered about the cabin, his frame shook and trembled, and his whole system seemed to be under some new excitement. He had formed a strong attachment for Tite, whom he now approached with his hands extended. "Like you," he said, grasping his hand firmly and looking up imploringly into his face, "I was young and handsome once. I am old and ugly now. Crime has written its ugly finger all over my face; has thrust its poison into this poor heart of mine. Never let it lay one ugly finger on your face. Make yours a life of joy, so that you may die happy. Oh, these poor old gray hairs of mine, this head that has sinned so much." And he raised his hard, bony hand to his head, and tossed the long white hair back over his shoulders.
Tarquin commenced his reign without any of the forms of election. One of his first acts was to abolish all the privileges which had been conferred upon the Plebeians by Servius. He also compelled the poor to work at miserable wages upon his magnificent buildings, and the hardships which they suffered were so great that many put an end to their lives. But he did not confine his oppressions to the poor. All the senators and patricians whom he mistrusted, or whose wealth he coveted, were put to death or driven into exile. He surrounded himself with a body-guard, by whose means he was enabled to carry out his designs. But, although a tyrant at home, he raised the state to great influence and power among the surrounding nations, partly by his alliances and partly by his conquests. He gave his daughter in marriage to Octavius Mamilius, of Tusculum, the most powerful of the Latins, by whose means he acquired great influence in Latium. Any Latin chiefs like Turnus Herdonius, who attempted to resist him, were treated as traitors, and punished with death. At the solemn meeting of the Latins at the Alban Mount, Tarquin sacrificed the bull on behalf of all the allies, and distributed the flesh to the people of the league.
|
