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The sight of such a city, with its close-huddled roofs, arranged for the most part amphitheatre-wise above a picturesque harbour, and crowned by a glorious cathedral front with triple-arched Gothic doorways, belfry towers, and filigree spires, is a spectacle surely in every way the sublimest on earth.
My thoughts flew back to the university; and the quiet of its cloisters which, until I had been blinded by the glare of the London world, and grief had somewhat dulled the edge of my quick desires and hopes, had seemed to me cheerless and unfaltering took an inviting aspect.
Such were the transactions in Spain also during the second summer of the Punic war; while in Italy the prudent delay of Fabius had procured the Romans some intermission from disasters; which conduct, as it kept Hannibal disturbed with no ordinary degree of anxiety, for it proved to him that the Romans had at length selected a general who would carry on the war with prudence, and not in dependence on fortune; so was it treated with contempt by his countrymen, both in the camp and in the city; particularly after that a battle had been fought during his absence from the temerity of the master of the horse, in its issue, as I may justly designate it, rather joyful than successful.
Even the artist might here, perchance, have seized on the dry ineffable pervading spirit, as one visiting an old cathedral seems to scent out the constriction of its heart.
Thus do institutions flourish that arise spontaneously on the spot; they adapt themselves to circumstances, conform to necessities, utilize resources and afford the maximum of returns for the minimum of expense. This great organization disappears entirely, bodily and with all its possessions, like a ship that sinks beneath the waves.
However much we may moralize about its baseness and hollowness, whether with the Hugo of Les Chatiments we scorn and vituperate its charlatan head or pity him profoundly as we see him ill and helpless in Zola's Debacle, most of us, if we are candid, will confess that the Second Empire, especially the Paris of Morny and Hausmann, of cynicism and splendour, of frivolity and chicane, of servile obsequiousness and haughty pretension, the France and the Paris that drew to themselves the eyes of all Europe and particularly the eyes of the watchful Bismarck, have for us a fascination almost as great as they had for the gay and audacious men and women who in them courted fortune and chased pleasure from the morrow of the Coup d'Etat to the eve of Sedan.
Lanfrey, vol. i. pp. 201, says of this pamphlets "Common enough ideas, expressed in a style only remarkable for its 'Italianisms, but becoming singularly firm and precise every time the author expresses his military views. It may be remarked, that in all that has come to us from St. Helena, not a word is said of this youthful production. Its character sufficiently explains this silence.
Requesens was dead; a general patriotic rising was imminent. On September 26th the States-General met at Brussels to discuss the question of uniting all the provinces. The Spanish Fury at Antwerp caused general consternation in the Netherlands. The ancient town was attacked quite suddenly, all its wealth falling into the hands of rapacious soldiers.
One of the most curious peculiarities of the dog mind is its inherent snobbishness, shown by the regard paid to external respectability. The dog who barks furiously at a beggar will let a well-dressed man pass him without opposition. Has he not then a "generic idea" of rags and dirt associated with the idea of aversion, and that of sleek broadcloth associated with the idea of liking?
And the folk knew that if ever they wanted religion, they had only to knock and ask for it. But one fine morning, an hour before noon, the whole parish sprang to its feet at the sound of a horn. The blast was twice repeated, and came from the little cottage across the sands. "'Tis the blessed saint's cow-horn!" they told each other. "Sure the dear man must be in the article of death!"
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