William Hepworth Dixon, White Conquest: Volume 2

[127] broad rivers turned, fair villages destroyed. Ruin reigned everywhere. Need one wonder that scars are left? The rent and blackened walls of Atlanta have not disappeared. It is in vain to dream that the moral sores are healed. Wounds inflicted in a civil strife last long. Israel was divided for ever by her war of tribes. For ages the contest of patricians and plebeians stopped the growth of Rome. Internal feuds gave Seville to the Moor and Dublin to the Saxon. Street conflicts opened Constantinople to the Turk. Religious conflicts weakened Germany and France. The raid on Freiburg by the Swiss volunteers is still resented by the Catholic Cantons. But the direst form of civil war is that which has a social or a servile cause. Long years elapsed ere Rome recovered from her tug with Spartacus. English society was shaken by Cade. Munzer's rising is still recalled with horror by the people of Wurtzburg and Rothenburg. The French wars of the communists, the Spanish wars of the comunidades, are not ended yet. Last year, at Cartagena, we heard the names and passwords used by Padilla in the reign of Charles the Fifth.