The names which end in "_us_," seem
to speak with lyric cadence. That measured cadence,--that
tramp and march,--which are not stilted, because they indicate
real force, yet which seem so when compared with any other
language,--make Latin a study in itself of mighty influence.
The language alone, without the literature, would give one the
_thought_ of Rome. Man present in nature, commanding nature
too sternly to be inspired by it, standing like the rock
amid the sea, or moving like the fire over the land, either
impassive, or irresistible; knowing not the soft mediums or
fine flights of life, but by the force which he expresses,
piercing to the centre.
'We are never better understood than when we speak of a "Roman
virtue," a "Roman outline." There is somewhat indefinite,
somewhat yet unfulfilled in the thought of Greece, of Spain,
of modern Italy; but ROME! it stands by itself, a clear Word.
The power of will, the dignity of a fixed purpose is what
it utters. Every Roman was an emperor. It is well that the
infallible church should have been founded on this rock, that
the presumptuous Peter should hold the keys, as the conquering
Jove did before his thunderbolts, to be seen of all the world.
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