



Produced by Joseph R. Hauser, Sankar Viswanathan, and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net







           [Illustration: TAINE, DANTE, GOETHE, CERVANTES]



                               THE BEST

                               _of the_

                           WORLD'S CLASSICS

                         RESTRICTED TO PROSE



                          HENRY CABOT LODGE

                          _Editor-in-Chief_


                          FRANCIS W. HALSEY

                          _Associate Editor_


                  With an Introduction, Biographical

                     and Explanatory Notes, etc.

                            IN TEN VOLUMES

                              Vol. VIII

                        CONTINENTAL EUROPE--II




                       FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY

                         NEW YORK AND LONDON



                         COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY

                       FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY

       *       *       *       *       *




The Best of the World's Classics

VOL. VIII

CONTINENTAL EUROPE--II

       *       *       *       *       *




CONTENTS

VOL. VIII--CONTINENTAL EUROPE--II


FRANCE--CONTINUED
1805-1909

ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE--(Born in 1805, died in 1859.)

The Tyranny of the American Majority.
(From Chapter XV of "Democracy in America." Translated by Henry Reeve)

ALFRED DE MUSSET--(Born in 1810, died in 1857.)

Titian's Son After a Night at Play.
(From "Titian's Son." Translated by Erie Arthur Bell)

THEOPHILE GAUTIER--(Born in 1811, died in 1872.)

Pharaoh's Entry into Thebes.
(From the "Romance of a Mummy." Translated by M. Young)

GUSTAVE FLAUBERT--(Born in 1821, died in 1880.)

Yonville and Its People.
(From Part II of "Madame Bovary." Translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling)

JOSEPH ERNEST RENAN--(Born in 1823, died in 1892.)

An Empire in Robust Youth.
(From the "History of the Origins of Christianity.")

HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE--(Born in 1828, died in 1893.)

I   Thackeray as a Satirist.
    (From Book V, Chapter II, of the "History of English Literature."
    Translated by H. van Laun)

II  When the King Got up for the Day.
    (From "The Ancient Regime." Translated by John Durand)

EMILE ZOLA--(Born in 1840, died in 1902.)

Glimpses of Napoleon III in Time of War.
(From "La Debacle." Translated by E. P. Robins)

ALPHONSE DAUDET--(Born in 1840, died in 1897.)

I   A Great Man's Widow.
    (From "Artists' Wives." Translated by Laura Ensor)

II  My First Dress Coat.
    (From "Thirty Years of Paris." Translated by Laura Ensor)

GUY DE MAUPASSANT--(Born in 1850, died in 1893.)

Madame Jeanne's Last Days.
(From the last chapter of "A Life." Translated by Eric Arthur Bell)


GERMANY

1483-1859


MARTIN LUTHER--(Born in 1483, died in 1546.)

Some of His Table Talk and Sayings.
(From the "Table Talk.")

GOTTHOLD E. LESSING--(Born in 1729, died in 1781.)

I   Poetry and Painting Compared.
    (From the preface to the "Laocoon." Translated by E. C. Beasley and
    Helen Zimmern)

II  Of Suffering Held in Restraint.
    (From Chapter I of the "Laocoon." Translated by Beasley and Zimmern)

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE--(Born in 1749, died in 1832.)

I   On First Reading Shakespeare.
    (From "Wilhelm Meister." Translated by Thomas Carlyle)

II  The Coronation of Joseph II.
    (From Book XII of the "Autobiography." Translated by John Oxenford)

FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER--(Born in 1759, died in 1808.)

I   The Battle of Lutzen.
    (From the "History of the Thirty Years' War." Translated by A. J. W.
    Morrison)

II  Philip II and the Netherlands.
    (From the introduction to the "History of the Revolt of the
    Netherlands." Translated by Morrison)

WILHELM VON SCHLEGEL--(Born in 1767, died in 1845.)

Shakespeare's "Macbeth."
(From the "Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature." Translated by
John Black, revised by A. J. W. Morrison)

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT--(Born in 1769, died in 1859.)

An Essay on Man.
(From his "General Review of Natural Phenomena." in Volume I of
"Cosmos." Translated by E. C. Otto and W. S. Dallas)

HEINRICH HEINE--(Born in 1799, died in 1856.)

Reminiscences of Napoleon.
(From Chapters VII, VIII and IX of "Travel Pictures." Translated by
Francis Storr)


ITALY

1254-1803


MARCO POLO--(Born in 1254, died in 1324.)

A Description of Japan.
(From the "Travels.")

DANTE ALIGHIERI--(Born in 1265, died in 1321.)

I   That Long Descent Makes No Man Noble.
    (From Book IV, Chapter XIV of "The Banquet." Translated by Katharine
    Hillard)

II  Of Beatrice and Her Death.
    (From "The New Life." Translated by Charles Eliot Norton)

FRANCESCO PETRARCH--(Born in 1304, died in 1374.)

Of Good and Evil Fortune.
(From the "Treatise on the Remedies of Good and Bad Fortune.")

GIOVANNI BOCCACIO--(Born probably in 1313, died in 1375.)

The Patient Griselda.
(From the "Decameron.")

NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI--(Born in 1469, died in 1527.)

Ought Princes to Keep Their Promises?
(From Chapter XVIII of "The Prince.")

BENVENUTO CELLINI--(Born in 1500, died in 1571.)

The Casting of His "Perseus and Medusa."
(From the "Autobiography." Translated by William Roscoe)

GIORGIO VASARI--(Born in 1511, died in 1574.)

Of Raphael and His Early Death.
(From "The Lives of the Most Famous Painters, Sculptors and
Architects." Translated by Mrs. Jonathan Foster)

CASANOVA DE SEINGALT--(Born in 1725, died probably in 1803.)

His Interview with Frederick the Great.
(From the "Memoirs.")


OTHER COUNTRIES

1465-1909


DESIDERIUS ERASMUS--(Born in 1465, died in 1536.)

Specimens of His Wit and Wisdom.
(From various books)

MIGUEL DE CERVANTES--(Born in 1547, died in 1616.)

I   The Beginnings of Don Quixote's Career.
    (From "Don Quixote." Translated by John Jarvis)

II  Of How Don Quixote Died.
    (From "Don Quixote." Translated by John Jarvis)

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN--(Born in 1805, died in 1875.)

The Emperor's New Clothes.
(From the "Tales.")

IVAN SERGEYEVITCH TURGENEFF--(Born in 1818, died in 1883.)

Bazarov's Death.
(From "Fathers and Children." Translated by Constance Garnett)

HENRIK IBSEN--(Born in 1828, died in 1906.)

The Thought Child.
(From "The Pretenders." Translated by William Archer)

COUNT LEO TOLSTOY--(Born in 1828.)

Shakespeare Not a Great Genius.
(From "A Critical Essay on Shakespeare." Translated by V. Tchertkoff
and I. F. M.)

       *       *       *       *       *




FRANCE (Continued)

1805-1909




ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

     Born in Paris in 1805, died in 1859; studied law, taking his
     degree in 1826; traveled in Italy and Sicily; in 1831
     visited the United States under a commission to study the
     penitentiary system; returning published a book on the
     subject which was crowned by the French Academy; from
     private notes taken in America then wrote his masterpiece,
     "Democracy in America," which secured his election to the
     Academy in 1841; spent some years in public life and then
     retired in order to travel and write.




THE TYRANNY OF THE AMERICAN MAJORITY[1]


I hold it to be an impious and execrable maxim that, politically
speaking, the people has a right to do whatever it pleases; and yet I
have asserted that all authority originates in the will of the
majority. Am I then in contradiction with myself?

[Footnote 1: From Chapter XV of "Democracy in America." Translated by
Henry Reeve.]

A general law, which bears the name of justice, has been made and
sanctioned not only by a majority of this or that people, but by a
majority of mankind. The rights of every people are consequently
confined within the limits of what is just. A nation may be considered
in the light of a jury which is empowered to represent society at
large and to apply the great and general law of justice. Ought such a
jury, which represents society, to have more power than the society in
which the law it applies originates?

When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the right which
the majority has of commanding, but I simply appeal from the
sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of mankind. It has been
asserted that a people can never entirely outstep the boundaries of
justice and of reason in those affairs which are more peculiarly its
own; and that consequently, full power may fearlessly be given to the
majority by which it is represented. But this language is that of a
slave.

A majority, taken collectively, may be regarded as a being whose
opinions, and most frequently whose interests are opposed to those of
another being, which is styled a minority. If it be admitted that a
man possessing absolute power may misuse that power by wronging his
adversaries, why should a majority not be liable to the same reproach?
Men are not apt to change their characters by agglomerating; nor does
their patience in the presence of obstacles increase with the
consciousness of their strength. And for these reasons I can never
willingly invest any number of my fellow creatures with that unlimited
authority which I should refuse to any one of them.

I do not think that it is possible to combine several principles in
the same government so as at the same time to maintain freedom and
really to oppose them to one another. The form of government which is
usually termed mixt has always appeared to me to be a mere chimera.
Accurately speaking, there is no such thing as a mixt government, with
the meaning usually given to that word; because in all communities
some one principle of action may be discovered which preponderates
over the others. England in the last century--which has been more
especially cited as an example of this form of government--was in
point of fact an essentially aristocratic state, altho it comprized
very powerful elements of democracy; for the laws and customs of the
country were such that the aristocracy could not but preponderate in
the end, and subject the direction of public affairs to its own will.
The error arose from too much attention being paid to the actual
struggle that was going on between the nobles and the people, without
considering the probable issue of the contest, which was really the
important point. When a community actually has a mixt government--that
is to say, when it is equally divided between two adverse
principles--it must either pass through a revolution or fall into
complete dissolution.

I am therefore of opinion that some one social power must always be
made to predominate over the others; but I think that liberty is
endangered when this power finds no obstacle which can <DW44> its
course, and force it to moderate its own vehemence.

Unlimited power is in itself a bad and dangerous thing. Human beings
are not competent to exercise it with discretion. God only can be
omnipotent, because His wisdom and His justice are always equal to His
power. But no power on earth is so worthy of honor for itself that I
would consent to admit its uncontrolled and all-predominant authority.
When I see that the right and the means of absolute command or of
reverential obedience to the right which it represents are conferred
on a people or upon a king, upon an aristocracy or a democracy, a
monarchy or a republic, I recognize the germ of tyranny; and I journey
onward to a land of more hopeful institutions.

In my opinion, the main evil of the present democratic institutions of
the United States does not arise, as is often asserted in Europe, from
their weakness, but from their irresistible strength. I am not so much
alarmed at the excessive liberty which reigns in that country as at
the very inadequate securities which exist against tyranny.

When an individual or a party is wronged in the United States, to whom
can he apply for redress? If to public opinion, public opinion
constitutes the majority; if to the legislature, it represents the
majority, and implicitly obeys its instructions; if to the executive
power, it is appointed by the majority, and is a passive tool in its
hands. The public troops consist of the majority under arms; the jury
is the majority invested with the right of hearing judicial cases; and
in certain cases, even the judges are elected by the majority. However
iniquitous or absurd the evil of which you complain may be, you must
submit to it as well as you can.

If, on the other hand, a legislative power could be so constituted as
to represent the majority without necessarily being the slave of its
passions, an executive so as to retain a certain degree of
uncontrolled authority, and a judiciary so as to remain independent of
the other two powers, a government would be formed which would still
be democratic, without incurring any risk of tyranny.

I do not say that there is a frequent use of tyranny in America at the
present day; but I maintain that no sure barrier is established
against it, and that the causes which mitigate the government are to
be found in the circumstances and the manners of the country more than
in its laws.




ALFRED DE MUSSET

     Born in 1810, died in 1857; educated at the College of Henry
     II in Paris; published "Tales of Spain and Italy," a volume
     of verse, in 1829; followed by other collections of verse in
     1831 and 1832; went to Italy in 1833 with George Sand, with
     whom he quarreled in Venice and returned to France;
     published "Confessions of a Child of the Century" in 1836;
     wrote stories and plays as well as poems; elected to the
     Academy in 1852.




TITIAN'S SON AFTER A NIGHT AT PLAY[2]


In the month of February of the year 1580 a young man was crossing the
Piazzeta at Venice at early dawn. His clothes were in disorder, his
cap, from which hung a beautiful scarlet feather, was pulled down over
his ears. He was walking with long strides toward the banks of the
Schiavoni, and his sword and cloak were dragging behind him, while
with a somewhat disdainful foot he picked his way among the fishermen
lying asleep on the ground. Having arrived at the bridge of Paille,
he stopt and looked around him. The moon was setting behind the
Giudecca and the dawn was gilding the Ducal Palace. From time to time
thick smoke or a brilliant light could be seen from some neighboring
palace. Planks, stones, enormous blocks of marble, and debris of every
kind obstructed the Canal of the Prisons. A recent fire had just
destroyed the home of a patrician which lined its banks. A volley of
sparks shot up from time to time, and by this sinister light an armed
soldier could be seen keeping watch in the midst of the ruins.

[Footnote 2: From De Musset's story, "Titian's Son." Translated for
this collection by Eric Arthur Bell. Titian's son, who was named
Pomponio, had been destined for the Church, but proving wasteful and
dissipated, his father caused the benefice intended for him to be
transferred to a nephew. Through the death of Titian's other son
Orazio, an artist of repute, who died soon after Titian and during the
same plague, Pomponio inherited the handsome fortune his father had
left and completely squandered it.]

Our young man, however, did not seem to be imprest either with this
spectacle of destruction or with the beauty of the sky, tinged with
the rosy colors of the dawning day. He looked for some time at the
horizon, as if to ease his tired eyes; but the brightness of the dawn
seemed to produce in him a disagreeable effect, for he wrapt himself
in his cloak and pursued his way at a run. He soon stopt again at the
door of a palace, where he knocked. A valet, holding a torch in his
hand, admitted him immediately. As he entered he turned round, and
casting one more glance at the sky, exclaimed, "By Bacchus! my
carnival has cost me dear."

This young man was called Pomponio Filippo Vecellio. He was the second
son of Titian, a youth full of spirit and imagination who had aroused
in his father the most lofty expectations, but whose passion for cards
kept him in continual dissipation. It was only four years before that
the great painter and his eldest son, Orazio, had died almost at the
same time, and young Pippo in those four years had already dissipated
the best part of the immense fortune which the double heritage had
given him. Instead of cultivating the talents which he possest by
nature and sustaining the glory of his name, he passed his days in
sleeping and his nights in playing at the house of a certain Countess
Orsini, or at least so-called countess, who made a profession of
ruining the gilded youth of Venice. Every night there assembled at her
house a large company composed of nobles and courtezans; there one
supped and played, and as one did not pay for one's supper, it goes
without saying that the dice helped to indemnify the mistress of the
house. Meanwhile, the sequins and the Cyprian wine began to flow
freely, loving glances were exchanged, and the victims, drunk with
love and wine, lost their money and their reason.

It is from this dangerous resort that we have seen the hero of this
story emerge. He had met with more than one loss during the night.
Besides having emptied his pockets at cards; the only picture he had
ever finished, one that the connoisseurs had pronounced excellent, had
just been destroyed in a fire in the Dolfino palace. It was an
historical subject, treated with a spirit and a sureness of touch
almost worthy of Titian himself. Sold to a rich Senator, this canvas
had met with the same fate as a great number of other previous works
of art; the carelessness of a valet had turned it to ashes. But this
Pippo counted the least of his misfortunes; he was only thinking of
the unlucky star that had lately been following him with unusual
insistence and of the throws of dice it had made him lose.

On entering his house, he began by taking off the coverlet which lay
on his table and counting the money left in his drawer; then, as he
was of a nature naturally gay and optimistic, after he had undrest he
sat at the window in his night robe. Seeing that it was almost
daylight, he began to ponder whether he would close the shutters and
get into bed, or get up like everybody else. It was a long time since
he had seen the sun in the east, and he found the sky more beautiful
than ever. Before deciding whether to wake up or go to sleep, he took
his chocolate on the balcony, in an effort to fight off his
drowsiness. The moment his eyes closed, he would see a table, many
trembling hands and pale faces, and would hear again the sound of the
cornets. "What fatal luck," he murmured. "Is it possible that one can
lose with fifteen?" And he saw his habitual opponent, old Vespiano
Memmo, throwing eighteen and taking up the money piled on the table.

He promptly opened his eyelids to get rid of the bad dream, and looked
at the young girls passing on the quay. He seemed to see in the
distance a masked woman; and was astonished, altho it was the time of
carnival, for poor people do not go masked, and it was strange that at
such an hour a Venetian lady should be out alone on foot. He
perceived, however, that what he had taken for a mask was the face of
a negress. On getting a nearer look at her, he saw she was not badly
formed. She walked very quickly, and a puff of wind which forced her
checkered skirt close to her limbs, showed her to have a graceful
figure. Pippo leaned over the balcony and saw not without surprize
that the negress knocked at his door.

The porter failed to open it.

"What do you want?" cried the young man. "Is it with me that your
business lies, brunette? My name is Vecellio, and if they are going to
keep you waiting, I will come and let you in myself."

The negress lifted her head.

"Your name is Pomponio Vecellio?"

"Yes, or Pippo, whichever you like."

"You are the son of Titian?"

"At your service. What can I do to please you?"

Having cast on Pippo a rapid and curious glance, the negress took a
few steps backward, and skilfully threw up into the balcony a little
box rolled in paper, and then promptly fled, turning round from time
to time. Pippo picked up the box, opened it, and found a pretty purse
wrapt in cotton. He rightly suspected that he might find under the
cotton a note that would explain this adventure. The note was found
indeed, but it was as mysterious as the rest, for it contained only
these words: "Do not spend too readily what I enclose herein; when you
leave home, charge me with one piece of gold. It is enough for one
day; and if in the evening you have any of it left, however little, it
may be you will find some poor person who will thank you for it."

The young man examined the box in a hundred different ways,
scrutinized the purse, looked once more on to the quay, and at length
realized that he had learned all he could. "Of a truth," thought he,
"this is a strange present, but it comes at a cruelly awkward moment.
The advice they give me is good, but it is too late to tell people to
swim when they are already at the bottom of the Adriatic. Who the
devil could have sent me this?"




THEOPHILE GAUTIER

     Born in 1811, died in 1872; studied painting in Paris, but
     soon joined the romantic literary movement; his first book,
     "Poesies," published in 1830; an art and dramatic critic
     1837-45; traveled in Spain, Holland, Italy, Greece and
     Russia in 1840-58, publishing books describing those
     countries and novels with them for scenes; many other novels
     followed, with occasional collections of verse and
     criticism.




PHARAOH'S ENTRY INTO THEBES[3]


At length their chariot reached the maneuvering-ground, an immense
enclosure, carefully leveled, used for splendid military displays.
Terraces, one above the other, which must have employed for years the
thirty nations led away into slavery, formed a frame _en relief_ for
the gigantic parallelogram; sloping walls built of crude bricks lined
these terraces; their tops were covered, several rows deep, by
hundreds of thousands of Egyptians, whose white or brightly 
costumes blazed in the sun with that perpetually restless movement
which characterizes a multitude, even when it appears motionless;
behind this line of spectators the cars, chariots, and litters, with
their drivers, grooms, and slaves, looked like the encampment of an
emigrating nation, such was their immense number; for Thebes, the
marvel of the ancient world, counted more inhabitants than did some
kingdoms.

[Footnote 3: From the "Romance of a Mummy." Translated by M. Young, as
authorized by Gautier.]

The fine, even sand of the vast arena, bordered with a million heads,
gleamed like mica dust beneath the light, falling from a sky as blue
as the enamel on the statuettes of Osiris. On the south side of the
field the terraces were broken, making way for a road which stretched
toward Upper Ethiopia, the whole length of the Libyan chain. In the
corresponding corner, the opening in the massive brick walls prolonged
the roads to the Rhamses-Maiamoun palace....

A frightful uproar, rumbling, deep, and mighty as that of an
approaching sea, arose in the distance, and drowned the thousand
murmurs of the crowd, like the roar of the lion which hushes the
barking of the jackals. Soon the noise of instruments of music could
be distinguished amidst this terrestrial thunder, produced by the
chariot wheels and the rhythmic pace of the foot-soldiers. A sort of
reddening cloud, like that raised by the desert blasts, filled the sky
in that direction, yet the wind had gone down; there was not a breath
of air, and the smallest branches of the palm-trees hung motionless,
as if they had been carved on a granite capital; not a hair moved on
the women's moist foreheads, and the fluted streamers of their
head-dresses hung loosely down their backs. This powdery fog was
caused by the marching army, and hung over it like a fallow cloud.

The tumult increased; the whirlwinds of dust opened, and the first
files of musicians entered the immense arena, to the great
satisfaction of the multitude, who in spite of its respect for his
Majesty were beginning to tire of waiting beneath a sun which would
have melted any other skulls than those of the Egyptians. The advance
guard of musicians halted for several instants; colleges of priests,
deputations of the principal inhabitants of Thebes, crossed the
maneuvering-ground to meet the Pharaoh, and arranged themselves in a
row in postures of the most profound respect, in such manner as to
give free passage to the procession. The band, which alone was a small
army, consisted of drums, tabors, trumpets, and sistras.

The first squad passed, blowing a deafening blast upon their short
clarions of polished brass which shone like gold. Each of these
trumpeters carried a second horn under his arm, as if the instrument
might grow weary sooner than the man. The costume of these men
consisted of a short tunic, fastened by a sash with ends falling in
front; a small band, in which were stuck two ostrich-feathers hanging
over on either side, bound their thick hair. These plumes, so worn,
recalled to mind the antennae of scarabaei, and gave the wearers an odd
look of being insects.

The drummers, clothed in a simple gathered skirt, and naked to the
waist, beat the onager-skin heads of their rounded drums with
sycamore-wood drumsticks, their instruments suspended by leather
shoulder-belts, and observed the time which a drum-major marked for
them by repeatedly turning toward them and clapping his hands. After
the drummers came the sistra-players, who shook their instruments by a
quick, abrupt motion, and made at measured intervals the metal links
ring on the four bronze bars. The tabor-players carried their oblong
instruments crosswise, held up by a scarf passed around the neck, and
struck the lightly stretched parchment with both hands.

Each company of musicians numbered at least two hundred men; but the
hurricane of noise produced by trumpets, drums, tabors, and sistras,
and which would have drawn blood from the ears inside a palace, was
none too loud or too unbearable beneath the vast cupola of heaven, in
the midst of this immense open space, amongst this buzzing crowd, at
the head of this army which would baffle nomenclators, and which was
now advancing with a roar as of great waters.

After the musicians came the barbarian captives, strangely formed,
with brutish faces, black skins, woolly hair, resembling apes as much
as men, and drest in the costume of their country, a short skirt above
the hips, held by a single brace, embroidered in different colors. An
ingenious and whimsical cruelty had suggested the way in which the
prisoners were chained. Some were bound with their elbows drawn behind
their backs; others with their hands lifted above their heads, in a
still more painful position; one had his wrists fastened in wooden
cangs (instruments of torture, still used in China); another was
half-strangled in a sort of pillory; or a chain of them were linked
together by the same rope, each victim having a knot round his neck.
It seemed as if those who had bound these unfortunates had found a
pleasure in forcing them into unnatural positions; and they advanced
before their conqueror with awkward and tottering gait, rolling their
large eyes and contorted with pain. Guards walked beside them,
regulating their step by beating them with staves....

A wide gorget with seven rows of enamels, precious stones, and golden
beads fell over the Pharaoh's chest and gleamed brightly in the
sunlight. His upper garment was a sort of loose shirt, with pink and
black squares; the ends, lengthening into narrow slips, were wound
several times about his bust and bound it closely; the sleeves, cut
short near the shoulder, and bordered with intersecting lines of gold,
red, and blue, exposed his round, strong arms, the left furnished with
a large metal wristband, meant to lessen the vibration of the string
when he discharged an arrow from his triangular bow; and the right,
ornamented by a bracelet in the form of a serpent in several coils,
held a long gold scepter with a lotus bud at the end. The rest of his
body was wrapt in drapery of the finest linen, minutely plaited, bound
about the waist by a belt inlaid with small enamel and gold plates.
Between the band and the belt his torso appeared, shining and polished
like pink granite shaped by a cunning workman. Sandals with returned
toes, like skates, shod his long narrow feet, placed together like
those of the gods on the temple walls.

His smooth beardless face, with large clearly cut features, which it
seemed beyond any human power to disturb, and which the blood of
common life did not color, with its death-like pallor, sealed lips,
enormous eyes enlarged with black lines, the lids no more lowered than
those of the sacred hawk, inspired by its very immobility a feeling of
respectful fear. One might have thought that these fixt eyes were
searching for eternity and the Infinite; they never seemed to rest on
surrounding objects. The satiety of pleasures, the surfeit of wishes
satisfied as soon as exprest, the isolation of a demigod who has no
equal among mortals, the disgust for perpetual adoration, and as it
were weariness of continual triumph, had forever frozen this face,
implacably gentle and of granite serenity. Osiris judging the souls
could not have had a more majestic and calm expression. A large tame
lion, lying by his side, stretched out its enormous paws like a sphinx
on its pedestal, and blinked its yellow eyes.

A rope, attached to the litter, bound the war chariots of the
vanquished chiefs to the Pharaoh. He dragged them behind him like
animals in leash. These men, with fierce despairing faces, their
elbows drawn together by a strap and forming an ungraceful angle,
tottered awkwardly at every motion of the char