numberless minute yet important mysteries in human character and
practical wisdom does he drink unconsciously from the sparkling
/persiflage/ of such a companion! Our education is hardly ever complete
without it.

"And so you think these stately Romans were not, after all, so
dissimilar to ourselves?" said Valerie, one day, as they looked over the
same earth and ocean along which had roved the eyes of the voluptuous
but august Lucullus.

"In the last days of their Republic, a /coup-d'oeil of their social date
might convey to us a general notion of our own. Their system, like
ours--a vast aristocracy heaved and agitated, but kept ambitious and
intellectual, by the great democratic ocean which roared below and
around it. An immense distinction between rich and poor--a nobility
sumptuous, wealthy, cultivated, yet scarcely elegant or refined; a
people with mighty aspirations for more perfect liberty, but always
liable, in a crisis, to be influenced and subdued by a deep-rooted
veneration for the very aristocracy against which they struggled;--a
ready opening through all the walls of custom and privilege, for every
description of talent and ambition; but so strong and universal a
respect for wealth, that the finest spirit grew avaricious, griping, and
corrupt, almost unconsciously; and the man who rose from the people did
not scruple to enrich himself out of the abuses he affected to lament;
and the man who would have died for his country could not help thrusting
his hands into her pockets. Cassius, the stubborn and thoughtful
patriot, with his heart of iron, had, you remember, an itching palm.
Yet, what a blow to all the hopes and dreams of a world was the
overthrow of the free party after the death of Caesar! What generations
of freemen fell at Philippi! In England, perhaps, we may have