Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Atlantic Essays

“ [330] you behold the commonwealth, the lives of you all, estates, fortunes, wives, and children, and the seat of this most renowned empire, this most fortunate and most beautiful city, preserved and restored to you by the distinguished love of the immortal gods, and by my toils, counsels, and dangers.”

What great thoughts were found within these pages, what a Roman vigor was in these maxims! “It is Roman to do and to suffer bravely.” “It is sweet and glorious to die for one's country.” “He that gives himself up to pleasure is not worthy the name of a man.” “It is the part of a brave and unshaken spirit not to be disturbed in adverse affairs.” “At how much is virtue to be estimated, which can never be taken away by force, nor purloined; is neither lost by shipwreck, nor by fire, nor is it changed by the alterations of seasons and of times.” Then came the tender charities. “Compassionate such grievous afflictions, compassionate a soul bearing unmerited treatment.” There was nothing hard or stern in this book, no cynicism, no indifference; but it was a flower-garden of lovely out-door allusions, a gallery of great deeds; and, as I have said, it formed the child's first real glimpse into the kingdom of words.

Could not the same literary fascination, the same spell, prophetic of future joys, have been exerted by English poetry? Perhaps so, though just the same quality of charm had never, in my case, been found there. But what fixed it forever in the mind was the minute and detailed study required in the process of translation,--the balancing of epithets, the seeking of equivalents. Genius doubtless is a law to itself, but for ordinary minds the delicate shading of language must be discerned by careful comparison of words, just as taste in dress comes to women by