On his track fire and blood spread their
banners, and the raven scented his trophies afar off; age and youth alike
were crushed under the tread of his war-horse; honor and valor and life's
best prime opposed him as summer opposes the Arctic hail-fury, and lay
beaten into mire at his feet. Hated, feared, followed to the death;
victorious or vanquished, the same strong, imperturbable, sullen nature;
persistent rather than patient in effort, vigorously direct in action; a
minister of unconscious good, of half-conscious evil; stern and gloomy to
the sacrilegious climax of his well-battled life, even in the regicidal act
going as one driven to his deeds by Fate that forgot God;--was he to be
wondered at, whose life, in ages far gone, began among the stony Sphinx
children?
Nor alone in these great landmarks of their dwelling have the Sphinx's
children haunted Earth. Poets have sung them under myriad names; History
has chronicled them in groups; Painting and Sculpture have handed down
their aspect to a gazing world. From them sprung the Eumenides, pursuers
and destroyers of men. They wore the garb of Roman legionaries, when Ramah
wept for her children dashed against the walls of the Holy City, and not
one stone stood upon another in Zion. They crowded the offices of the
Inquisition, and tested the endurance of its victims, with steady finger on
the flickering pulse, and calm eye on the death-sweating brow and bitten
lip. They put on the Druid's robe and wreath, and held the human sacrifice
closer to its altar.
Pages:
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272