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The Education of Henry Adams, conceived as a study in the philosophy of history, turns out in fact to be an Apologia pro vitâ suâ, one of the most self-centered and self-revealing books in the language. The revelation is not indeed of the direct sort that springs from frank and insouciant spontaneity. Since the revelation was not intended, the process is tortuous in the extreme.
It was no doubt written in a tone calculated to affect him deeply, since it induced him to form a resolution, which could only be carried into execution by the tenderest and most generous sympathy for his unhappy friend. Sunt hie etiam sua proemia laudi, Sunt lachrymae rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt. E'en the mute walls relate the victim's fame. And sinner's tears the good man's pity claim.
At Tuillemont, an English gentleman once told me he had the misfortune to sleep one night where all the people's heads were full of the Emperor, who had dined there the day before; and some wise fellow of the place wrote these lines under his picture: Ingreditur magnus magno de Cæsare Cæsar, Thenas, sub signo Cervi, sua prandia sumit.
Cicero did afterward defend this Antony, as we learn from his speech Pro Domo Suâ; but his change of purpose in that respect has nothing to do with the argument. We have two speeches extant made this year: one on behalf of P. Sulla, nephew to the Dictator; the other for Archias the Greek scholar and poet, who had been Cicero's tutor and now claimed to be a citizen of Rome.
The principle is good, but I do not think it warrants the inference that beasts have no feeling, because I think that, properly speaking, perception is not sufficient to cause misery if it is not accompanied by reflexion. It is the same with happiness: without reflexion there is none. O fortunatos nimium, sua qui bona norint!
Our children may not grow into the genius, but they will grow into somewhat of the goodness of the illustrious and saintly John Henry Newman, if, in after years, they can write the first lines of their autobiographies in the words which open the biographical part of the Apologia Pro Vita Sua: I was brought up from a child to take great delight in reading the Bible.
"No, doctor, nor for bawling," said the patient peevishly. "Come, young man," said the senior kindly, "be reasonable. Cuilibet in sua arte credendum est. My whole life has been given to this art. I studied at Montpelier; the first school in France, and by consequence in Europe. There learned I Dririmancy, Scatomancy, Pathology, Therapeusis, and, greater than them all, Anatomy.
To say nothing here of the homonymy of the word indifferent, but to take it in that signification which concerneth our present purpose, it signifieth such a mean betwixt good and evil in human actions, as is alike distant from both these extremes, and yet susceptive of either of them. Indifferens, saith Calepin, is that quod sua natura neque bonum est neque malum.
Salvator Rosa was fond of splendor and ostentatious display. He courted admiration from whatever source it could be obtained, and even sought it by means to which the frivolous and the vain are supposed alone to resort. He is described, therefore, as returning to Rome, from which he had made so perilous and furtive an escape, in a showy and pompous equipage, with "servants in rich liveries, armed with silver hafted swords, and otherwise well accoutred." The beautiful Lucrezia, as "sua Governante," accompanied him, and the little Rosalvo gave no scandal in a society where the instructions of religion substitute license for legitimate indulgence. Immediately on his arrival in Rome, Salvator fixed upon one of the loveliest of her hills for his residence, and purchased a handsome house upon the Monte Pincio, on the Piazza della Trinit
'It is on this account, as father Damien observes, 'that Mary, who introduced this illustrious day diffused a brightness over the morning by her nativity Maria, veri proevia luminis, nativitate suâ mane clarissimum serenavit. Hasten then, brethren, hasten with joy to behold the beginnings of this new day: we shall see it shine in the attractive light of an untarnished purity!"......Bossuet's Sermon.
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