lineaments, so marble strong they gleamed in every light. Who,
that has lived with those men, but admires the plain force of
fact, of thought passed into action? They take up things with
their naked hands. There is just the man, and the block he
casts before you,--no divinity, no demon, no unfulfilled
aim, but just the man and Rome, and what he did for Rome.
Everything turns your attention to what a man can become,
not by yielding himself freely to impressions, not by letting
nature play freely through him, but by a single thought,
an earnest purpose, an indomitable will, by hardihood,
self-command, and force of expression. Architecture was the
art in which Rome excelled, and this corresponds with the
feeling these men of Rome excite. They did not grow,--they
built themselves up, or were built up by the fate of Rome, as
a temple for Jupiter Stator. The ruined Roman sits among
the ruins; he flies to no green garden; he does not look to
heaven; if his intent is defeated, if he is less than he meant
to be, he lives no more. The names which end in "_us_," seem
to speak with lyric cadence. That measured cadence,--that
tramp and march,--which are not stilted, because they indicate
real force, yet which seem so when compared with any other
language,--make Latin a study in itself of mighty influence.
The language alone, without the literature, would give one the
_thought_ of Rome. Man present in nature, commanding nature
too sternly to be inspired by it, standing like the rock
amid the sea, or moving like the fire over the land, either
impassive, or irresistible; knowing not the soft mediums or
fine flights of life, but by the force which he expresses,
piercing to the centre.