What a constellation of gifts was theirs! Culture, sanity, imagination, wit, courage, vigor--all these stars were grouped in their mental constellations! Yet little vices dethroned these kings and made them plebeian.

It is the absence of little virtues and sweet domestic graces that seem trifling as the two mites that robs the Roman poets and orators of their power over us.

They had urbanites indeed, flowers, music, art, oratory, letters, song.

The events of each day were executed like a piece of music, and even their sarcophagi were covered with scenes of feasting and revelry.

But they were not true; and that false note jars through all their pages.