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[Assistant] Then Mr. Stryver turned and burst out of the bank, causing such a concussion of air on his passage through that to stand up against it bowing behind two counters required the utmost remaining strength of the two ancient clerks.


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[Assistant] Those venerable and feeble persons were always seen by the public in the act of bowing and were popularly believed when they had bowed a customer out still to keep on bowing in the empty office until they bowed another customer in.


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[Assistant] The barrister was keen enough to divine that the banker would not have gone so far in his expression of opinion on any less solid ground than moral certainty.


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[Assistant] Unprepared as he was for the large pill he had to swallow, he got it down.


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[Assistant] And now, said Mr. Stryver, shaking his forensic forefinger at the temple in general, when it was down, my way out of this is to put you all in the wrong.


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[Assistant] It was a bit of the art of an old Bailey tactician in which he found great relief.


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[Assistant] You shall not put me in the wrong, young lady," said Mr. Stryver. I'll do that for you.


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[Assistant] Accordingly, when Mr. Lorry called that night as late as ten o'clock, Mr. Stryver, among a quantity of books and papers littered out for the purpose, seemed to have nothing less on his mind than the subject of the morning.


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[Assistant] Said that good-natured emissary, after a full half hour of ruthless attempts to bring him round to the question, I have been to Soho. To Soho? Repeated Mr. Stryver, coldly. Oh, to be sure. What am I thinking of? And I have no doubt, said Mr. Lorry, that I was right in the conversation we had.


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[Assistant] My opinion is confirmed, and I reiterate my advice.


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[Assistant] I assure you, returned Mr. Stryver in the friendliest way, that I am sorry for it on your account, and sorry for it on the poor father's account.


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[Assistant] Having supposed that there was sense where there is no sense, and a laudable ambition where there is not a laudable ambition, I am well out of my mistake and no harm is done.


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[Assistant] Young women have committed similar follies often before, and have repented them in poverty and obscurity often before.


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[Assistant] It is hardly necessary to say I could have gained nothing by it. There is no harm at all done.


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[Assistant] I have not proposed to the young lady, and between ourselves I am by no means certain on reflection that I ever should have committed myself to that extent.


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[Assistant] Mr. Lorry, you cannot control the mincing vanities and giddiness of empty-headed girls?


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[Assistant] I tell you, I regret it on account of others, but I am satisfied on my own account.


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[Assistant] And I am really very much obliged to you for allowing me to sound you, and for giving me your advice.


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[Assistant] You know the young lady better than I do. You were right. It never would have done.


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[Assistant] Mr. Lorry was so taken aback that he looked quite stupidly at Mr. Stryver, shouldering him towards the door, with an appearance of showering generosity, forbearance, and goodwill on his erring head.


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[Assistant] Make the best of it, my dear sir, said Stryver. Say no more about it. Thank you again for allowing me to sound you. Good night.


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[Assistant] Mr. Lorry was out in the night before he knew where he was.


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[Assistant] Mr. Stryver was lying back on his sofa, winking at his ceiling.


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[Assistant] Chapter 13 The Fellow of No Delicacy


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[Assistant] If Sydney Carton ever shone anywhere, he certainly never shone in the house of Dr. Manette.


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[Assistant] He had been there often during a whole year and had always been the same moody and morose lounger there.


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[Assistant] When he cared to talk, he talked well, but the cloud of caring for nothing which overshadowed him with such a fatal darkness was very rarely pierced by the light within him.


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[Assistant] And yet he did care something for the streets that environed that house, and for the senseless stones that made their pavements.


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[Assistant] Many a night he vaguely and unhappily wandered there, when wine had brought no transitory gladness to him.


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[Assistant] Many a dreary daybreak revealed his solitary figure lingering there, and still lingering there when the first beams of the sun brought into strong relief.


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[Assistant] Removed beauties of architecture in spires of churches and lofty buildings as perhaps the quiet time brought some sense of better things, else forgotten and unattainable, into his mind.


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[Assistant] Of late, the neglected bed in the temple court had known him more scantily than ever.


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[Assistant] And often when he had thrown himself upon it no longer than a few minutes, he had got up again and haunted that neighborhood.


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[Assistant] On a day in August, when Mr. Stryver, after notifying to his jackal that he had thought better of that marrying matter, had carried his delicacy into Devonshire, and when the sight and scent of flowers in the city streets had some waifs of goodness in them for the worst, of health for the sickliest, and of youth for the oldest, Sydney's feet still trod those stones.


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[Assistant] From being irresolute and purposeless, his feet became animated by an intention and, in the working out of that intention, they took him to the doctor's door.


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[Assistant] He was shown upstairs and found Lucy at her work alone.


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[Assistant] She had never been quite at her ease with him and received him with some little embarrassment as he seated himself near her table.


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[Assistant] But looking up at his face in the interchange of the first few common places, she observed a change in it. I fear you are not well, Mr. Cotton.


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[Assistant] No, but the life I lead, Miss Manette, is not conducive to health.


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[Assistant] What is to be expected of or by such profligates? Is it not? Forgive me.


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[Assistant] I have begun the question on my lips. A pity to live no better life. God knows it is a shame. Then why not change it?


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[Assistant] Looking gently at him again, she was surprised and saddened to see that there were tears in his eyes. There were tears in his voice, too, as he answered, It is too late for that. I shall never be better than I am. I shall sink lower and be worse.


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[Assistant] He leaned an elbow on her table and covered his eyes with his hand. The table trembled in the silence that followed.


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[Assistant] She had never seen him softened and was much distressed. He knew her to be so without looking at her and said, pray forgive me Miss Manette.


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[Assistant] I break down before the knowledge of what I want to say to you. Will you hear me? If it will do you any good, Mr. Carton, if it would make you happier, it would make me very glad. God bless you for your sweet compassion.


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[Assistant] He unshaded his face after a little while and spoke steadily.


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[Assistant] Don't be afraid to hear me. Don't shrink from anything I say. I am like one who died young. All my life might have been. No, Mr. Cotton. I am sure that the best part of it might still be.


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[Assistant] I am sure that you might be much, much worthier of yourself.


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[Assistant] Say of you, Miss Manette, and although I know better,


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[Assistant] Although in the mystery of my own wretched heart I know better, I shall never forget it.


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[Assistant] That you could have returned the love of the man you see before you.


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[Assistant] Self-flung away, wasted, drunken, poor creature of misuse as you know him to be.


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[Assistant] He would have been conscious this day and hour, in spite of his happiness, that he would bring you to misery, bring you to sorrow and repentance, blight you, disgrace you, pull you down with him. I know very well that you can have no tenderness for me. I ask for none. I am even thankful that it cannot be. Without it, can I not save you, Mr. Carton? Can I not recall you? Forgive me again, to a better core,


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[Assistant] I know this is a confidence, she modestly said after a little hesitation and in earnest tears. I know you would say this to no one else.


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[Assistant] Can I turn it to no good account for yourself, Mr. Cotton? He shook his head. To none. No, Miss Manette. To none.


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[Assistant] If you will hear me through a very little more, all you can ever do for me is done.


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[Assistant] I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul. In my degradation I have not been so degraded but that the sight of you with your father and of this home made such a home by you has stirred old shadows that I thought had died out of me.


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[Assistant] Since I knew you, I have been troubled by a remorse that I thought would never approach me again, and have heard whispers from old voices impelling me upward that I thought were silent forever.


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[Assistant] I have had unformed ideas of striving afresh, beginning anew, shaking off sloth and sensuality, and fighting out the abandoned fight.


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[Assistant] A dream, all a dream, that ends in nothing and leaves the sleeper where he lay down, but I wish you to know that you inspired it. Will nothing of it remain? Oh, Mr. Carton, think again, try again.


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[Assistant] No, Miss Manette, all through it I have known myself to be quite undeserving.


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[Assistant] And yet I have had the weakness and have still the weakness to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me.


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[Assistant] of ashes that I am into fire. A fire, however, inseparable in its nature from myself, quickening nothing, lighting nothing, doing no service, idly burning away.


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[Assistant] Since it is my misfortune, Mr. Carton, to have made you more unhappy than you were before you knew me,


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[Assistant] Don't say that, Miss Manette, for you would have reclaimed me if anything could. You will not be the cause of my becoming worse.


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[Assistant] Since the state of your mind that you describe is at all events attributable to some influence of mine, that is what I mean if I can make it plain. Can I use no influence to serve you? Have I no power for good with you at all?


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[Assistant] The utmost good that I am capable of now, Miss Manette, I have come here to realize.


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[Assistant] Let me carry through the rest of my misdirected life, the remembrance that I opened my heart to you, last of all the world.


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[Assistant] And that there was something left in me at this time which you could deplore and pity.


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[Assistant] Which I entreated you to believe, again and again, most fervently with all my heart, was capable of better things, Mr. Carton.


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[Assistant] Entreat me to believe it no more, Miss Manette.


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[Assistant] I distress you. I draw fast to an end.


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[Assistant] Will you let me believe when I recall this day that the last confidence of my life was reposed in your pure and innocent breast and that it lies there alone and will be shared by no one? If that would be a consolation to you, yes.


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[Assistant] Not even by the dearest one ever to be known to you.


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[Assistant] Mr. Carton, she answered, after an agitated pause. The secret is yours, not mine. And I promise to respect it. Thank you. And again, God bless you.


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[Assistant] He put her hand to his lips and moved towards the door.


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[Assistant] Be under no apprehension, Miss Manette, of my ever resuming this conversation by so much as a passing word. I will never refer to it again.


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[Assistant] If I were dead, that could not be surer than it is henceforth.


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[Assistant] In the hour of my death I shall hold sacred the one good remembrance, and shall thank and bless you for it, that my last avowal of myself was made to you, and that my name and faults and miseries were gently carried in your heart. May it otherwise be light and happy.


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[Assistant] He was so unlike what he had ever shown himself to be, and it was so sad to think how much he had thrown away and how much he every day kept down and perverted that Lucy Manette wept mournfully for him as he stood looking back at her. Be comforted, he said. I am not worth such feeling, Miss Manette.


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[Assistant] An hour or two hence and the low companions and low habits that I scorn but yield to will render me less worth such tears as those than any wretch who creeps along the streets. Be comforted.


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[Assistant] But within myself I shall always be towards you what I am now, though outwardly I shall be what you have heretofore seen me.


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[Assistant] The last supplication but one I make to you is that you will believe this of me. I will, Mister Carton.


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[Assistant] My last supplication of all is this, and with it I will relieve you of a visitor with whom I well know you have nothing in unison, and between whom and you there is an impassable space.


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[Assistant] It is useless to say it, I know, but it rises out of my soul. For you and for any dear to you, I would do anything.


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[Assistant] If my career were of that better kind, that there was any opportunity or capacity of sacrifice in it,


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[Assistant] I would embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you.


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[Assistant] Try to hold me in your mind at some quiet times, as ardent and sincere in this one thing. The time will come, the time will not belong in coming, when new ties will be formed about you.


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[Assistant] Ties that will bind you yet more tenderly and strongly to the home you so adorn.


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[Assistant] The dearest ties that will ever grace and gladden you. Oh, Miss Manette.


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[Assistant] When the little picture of a happy father's face looks up in yours, when you see your own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet,


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[Assistant] Think now and then that there is a man who would give his life to keep a life you love beside you. He said, farewell, and alas, God bless you, and left her.


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[Assistant] For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Story of Mankind by Hendrik van Loon. Chapter 15. Greek Self-Government.


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[Assistant] The Greeks were the first people to try the difficult experiment of self-government.


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[Assistant] Every man had owned a certain number of cows and sheep. His mud hut had been his castle. He had been free to come and go as he wished.


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[Assistant] Whenever it was necessary to discuss matters of public importance all the citizens had gathered in the marketplace. One of the older men of the village was elected chairman.


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[Assistant] In case of war, a particularly energetic and self-confident villager was chosen commander in chief.


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[Assistant] But the same people who had voluntarily given this man the right to be their leader claimed an equal right to deprive him of his job once the danger had been averted. But gradually the village had grown into a city. Some people had worked hard and others had been lazy, a few had been unlucky, and still others had been just plain dishonest in dealing with their neighbours and had gathered wealth.


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[Assistant] On the contrary, it was inhabited by a small class of very rich people and a large class of very poor ones.


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[Assistant] The old commander-in-chief who had been willingly recognized as headman or king because he knew how to lead his men to victory had disappeared from the scene. His place had been taken by the nobles


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[Assistant] These nobles enjoyed many advantages over the common crowd of freemen. They were able to buy the best weapons which were to be found on the market of the Eastern Mediterranean.


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[Assistant] They were constantly quarreling among each other to decide who should rule the city.


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[Assistant] Such a king, by the grace of his soldiers, was called a tyrant, and during the seventh and sixth centuries before our era, every Greek city was for a time ruled by such tyrants, many of whom, by the way, happened to be exceedingly capable men.


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[Assistant] But in the long run, this state of affairs became unbearable. Then attempts were made to bring about reforms


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[Assistant] And out of these reforms grew the first democratic government of which the world has a record.


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[Assistant] And when he had finished his code, the people of Athens discovered that these Draconian laws were so severe that they could not possibly be put into effect.


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[Assistant] There would not have been rope enough to hang all the criminals under their new system of jurisprudence which made the stealing of an apple a capital offense. The Athenians looked about for a more humane reformer.


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[Assistant] At last they found someone who could do that sort of thing better than anybody else. His name was Solon.


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[Assistant] He belonged to a noble family, and he had traveled all over the world and had studied the forms of government of many other countries.


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[Assistant] After a careful study of the subject, Solon gave Athens a set of laws which bore testimony to that wonderful principle of moderation which was part of the Greek character.


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[Assistant] He tried to improve the condition of the peasant, without however destroying the prosperity of the nobles who were


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[Assistant] Or rather, who could be, of such great service to the state as soldiers.


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[Assistant] Solon made a provision whereby a citizen with a grievance had the right to state his case before a jury of thirty of his fellow Athenians.


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[Assistant] Most important of all, Solon forced the average freeman to take a direct and personal interest in the affairs of the city. No longer could he stay at home and say, oh, I'm too busy today, or it is raining and I had better stay indoors. He was expected to do his share.


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[Assistant] And to rely upon themselves for their salvation and that was a very good thing.


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[Assistant] The Semitic colony of Carthage on the northern coast of Africa and the Indo-European city of Rome on the west coast of Italy fought each other for the possession of the western Mediterranean and Carthage was destroyed.


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[Assistant] The little Phoenician trading post of Kartajat stood on a low hill which overlooked the African Sea, a stretch of water 90 miles wide, which separates Africa from Europe.


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[Assistant] It was an ideal spot for a commercial center, almost too ideal. It grew too fast and became too rich. When in the sixth century before our era, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon destroyed Tyr,


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[Assistant] Carthage broke off all further relations with the mother country.


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[Assistant] And became an independent state, the great Western advanced post of the Semitic races. Here you see a picture of Carthage.


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[Assistant] Unfortunately, the city had inherited many of the traits which for a thousand years had been characteristic of the Phoenicians. It was a vast business house, protected by a strong navy, indifferent to most of the finer aspects of life.


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[Assistant] The city and the surrounding country and the distant colonies were all ruled by a small but exceedingly powerful group of rich men.


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[Assistant] The Greek word for rich is plutos, and the Greeks called such a government by rich men a plutocracy. Carthage was a plutocracy.


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[Assistant] And the real power of the state lay in the hands of a dozen big ship owners and mine owners and merchants who met in the back room of an office and regarded their common fatherland as a business enterprise which ought to yield them a decent profit.


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[Assistant] They were, however, wide awake and full of energy and worked very hard.


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[Assistant] taxes and dividends to the mighty city on the African Sea.


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[Assistant] Of course, such a plutocracy was forever at the mercy of the crowd. As long as there was plenty of work and wages were high, the majority of the citizens were quite contented, allowed their betters to rule them, and asked no embarrassing questions. But when no ships left the harbor, when no ore was brought to the smelting ovens,


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[Assistant] When dock workers and stevedores were thrown out of employment, then there were grumblings, and there was a demand.


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[Assistant] That the popular assembly be called together as in the olden days when Carthage had been a self-governing republic.


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[Assistant] To prevent such an occurrence, the plutocracy was obliged to keep the business of the town going at full speed.


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[Assistant] They had managed to do this very successfully for almost 500 years when they were greatly disturbed by certain rumors which reached them from the western coast of Italy.


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[Assistant] It was said that a little village on the banks of the Tiber had suddenly risen to great power and was making itself the acknowledged leader of all the Latin tribes who inhabited central Italy. It was also said that this village, which by the way was called Rome,


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[Assistant] Intended to build ships and go after the commerce of Sicily and the southern coast of France.


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[Assistant] Carthage could not possibly tolerate such competition.


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[Assistant] The young rival must be destroyed, lest the Carthaginian rulers lose their prestige as the absolute rulers of the Western Mediterranean.


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[Assistant] The rumors were duly investigated, and in a general way these were the facts that came to light.


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[Assistant] The west coast of Italy had long been neglected by civilization.


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[Assistant] Whereas in Greece, all the good harbors faced eastward and enjoyed a full view of the busy islands of the Aegean, the west coast of Italy,


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[Assistant] Contemplated nothing more exciting than the desolate waves of the Mediterranean, the country was poor.


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[Assistant] It was therefore rarely visited by foreign merchants, and the natives were allowed to live in undisturbed possession of their hills and their marshy plains.


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[Assistant] The first serious invasion of this land came from the north.


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[Assistant] At an unknown date, certain Indo-European tribes had managed to find their way through the passes of the Alps and had pushed southward until they had filled the heel and the toe of the famous Italian boot with their villages and their flocks.


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[Assistant] Of these early conquerors we know nothing. No Homer sang their glory, their accounts of the foundation of Rome.


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[Assistant] Our fairy stories and do not belong in a history. Romulus and Remus jumping across each other's walls, I always forget who jumped across whose wall, make entertaining reading, but the foundation of the city of Rome was a much more prosaic affair. Rome began as a thousand American cities have done, by being a convenient place for barter and horse trading. It lay in the heart of the plains of central Italy. The Tiber provided direct access to the sea.


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[Assistant] The land road from north to south found here a convenient ford which could be used all the year round. And seven little hills along the banks of the river offered the inhabitants a safe shelter against their enemies who lived in the mountains and those who lived beyond the horizon of the nearby sea.


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[Assistant] The Mountaineers were called the Sabans. They were a rough crowd with an unholy desire for easy plunder. But they were very backward. They used stone axes and wooden shields and were no match for the Romans with their steel swords.


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[Assistant] The sea people, on the other hand, were dangerous foes. They were called the Etruscans. And they were, and still are, one of the greatest mysteries of history. Nobody knew or knows, whence they came, who they were, what had driven them away from their original homes.


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[Assistant] We have found the remains of their cities and their cemeteries and their waterworks all along the Italian coast. We are familiar with their inscriptions. But, as no one has ever been able to decipher the Etruscan alphabet, these written messages are so far merely annoying and not at all useful.


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[Assistant] Our best guess is that the Etruscans came originally from Asia Minor, and that a great war or a pestilence in that country had forced them to go away and seek a new home elsewhere.


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[Assistant] Whatever the reason for their coming, the Etruscans played a great role in history.


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[Assistant] And they taught the Romans, who, as we know, came from the north, the first principles of architecture and street building and fighting and art and cookery and medicine and astronomy.


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[Assistant] But just as the Greeks had not loved their Aegean teachers, in this same way did the Romans hate their Etruscan masters. They got rid of them as soon as they could.


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[Assistant] And the opportunity offered itself when Greek merchants discovered the commercial possibilities of Italy and when the first Greek vessels reached Rome.


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[Assistant] The Greeks came to trade, but they stayed to instruct. They found the tribes who inhabited the Roman countryside and who were called the Latins, quite willing to learn such things as might be a practical use. At once they understood the great benefit that could be derived from a written alphabet, and they copied that of the Greeks.


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[Assistant] Eventually, the Romans swallowed Greek civilization hook, line, and sinker. They even welcomed the gods of the Greeks to their country.


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[Assistant] Zeus was taken to Rome, where he became known as Jupiter, and the other divinities followed him.


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[Assistant] The Roman gods, however, never were quite like their cheerful cousins, who had accompanied the Greeks on their road through life and through history.


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[Assistant] The Roman gods were state functionaries. Each one managed his own department with great prudence and a deep sense of justice. But in turn, he was exact in demanding the obedience of his worshippers.


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[Assistant] This obedience the Romans rendered with scrupulous care.


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[Assistant] But they never established the cordial personal relations and that charming friendship, which had existed between the old Helenes and the mighty residents of the High Olympian Peak.


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[Assistant] The Romans did not imitate the Greek form of government, but being of the same Indo-European stock as the people of Hellas, the early history of Rome resembles that of Athens and other Greek cities. They did not find it difficult to get rid of their kings, the descendants of the ancient tribal chieftains, but once the kings had been driven from the city, the Romans were forced to bridle the power of the nobles.


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[Assistant] And it took many centuries before they managed to establish a system which gave every free citizen of Rome a chance to take a personal interest in the affairs of his town.


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[Assistant] Thereafter, the Romans enjoyed one great advantage over the Greeks.


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[Assistant] They managed the affairs of their country without making too many speeches.


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[Assistant] The Plebe, as the assemblage of free citizens was called, only too well to waste valuable time upon mere talk. They therefore placed the actual business of running the city into the hands of two consuls who were assisted by a council of elders called the Senate, because the word Senex means an old man. As a matter of custom and practical advantage, the senators were elected from the nobility, but their power had been strictly defined


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[Assistant] Rome at one time had passed through some sort of struggle between the poor and the rich, which had forced Athens to adopt the laws of Draco and Ceylon.


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[Assistant] In Rome, this conflict had occurred in the 5th century BC. As a result, the freemen had obtained a written code of laws which protected them against the despotism of the aristocratic judges by the institution of the Tribune.


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[Assistant] But if the case had not been absolutely proved, the Tribune could interfere and save the poor fellow's life.


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[Assistant] But when I used the word Rome, I seemed to refer to a little city of a few thousand inhabitants, and the real strength of Rome lay in the country districts outside her walls. And it was in the government of these outlying provinces that Rome at an early age showed her wonderful gift as a colonizing power.


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[Assistant] In very early times, Rome had been the only strongly fortified city in central Italy, but it had always offered a hospitable refuge to other Latin tribes who happened to be in danger of attack.


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[Assistant] The Latin neighbors had recognized the advantages of a close union with such a powerful friend.


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[Assistant] They gave the outsider a chance to become partners in a common respublica, or commonwealth.


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[Assistant] You want to join us, they said. Very well, go ahead and join. We shall treat you as if you were full-fledged citizens of Rome.


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[Assistant] In return for this privilege, we expect you to fight for our city, the mother of us all, whenever it shall be necessary.


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[Assistant] The outsider appreciated this generosity, and he showed his gratitude by his unswerving loyalty.


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[Assistant] Whenever a Greek city had been attacked, the foreign residents had moved out as quickly as they could.


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[Assistant] Why defend something which meant nothing to them but a temporary boarding house, in which they were tolerated as long as they paid their bills? But when the enemy was before the gates of Rome,


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[Assistant] All the Latins rushed to her defense. It was their mother who was in danger. It was their true home even if they lived a hundred miles away and had never seen the walls of the sacred hills.


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[Assistant] No defeat and no disaster could change the sentiment. In the beginning of the 4th century B.C., the wild Gauls forced their way into Italy. They had defeated the Roman army near the river Alia and had marched upon the city. They had taken Rome


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[Assistant] And then they expected that the people would come and sue for peace. They waited, but nothing happened.


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[Assistant] After a short time, the Gauls found themselves surrounded by a hostile population, which made it impossible for them to obtain supplies. After seven months, hunger forced them to withdraw.


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[Assistant] The policy of Rome to treat the foreigner on equal terms had proved a great success, and Rome stood stronger than ever before.


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[Assistant] This short account of the early history of Rome shows you the enormous difference between the Roman ideal of a healthy state and that of the ancient world which was embodied in the town of Carthage.


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[Assistant] The Carthaginians, following the example of Egypt and Western Asia, insisted upon the unreasoning and therefore unwilling obedience of subjects. And when these failed, they hired professional soldiers to do their fighting for them.


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[Assistant] You will now understand why Carthage was bound to fear such a clever and powerful enemy.


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[Assistant] And why the plutocracy of Carthage was only too willing.


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[Assistant] But the Carthaginians, being good businessmen, knew that it never pays to rush matters. They proposed to the Romans that their respective cities draw two circles on a map and that each town claim one of these circles as their own sphere of influence and promise to keep out of the other fellow's circle.


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[Assistant] The agreement was promptly made and was broken just as promptly when both sides thought it was wise to send their armies to Sicily, where a rich soil and a bad government invited for an interference. Here you see a picture of the Spheres of Influence map.


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[Assistant] The war which followed, the so-called First Punic War, lasted twenty-four years. It was fought out on the high seas, and in the beginning it seemed that the experienced Carthaginian navy would defeat the newly created Roman fleet.


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[Assistant] Following their ancient tactics, the Carthaginian ships would either ram the enemy vessels, or, by a bold attack from the side, they would break their oars and then kill the sailors of the helpless vessel with their arrows and with fireballs.


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[Assistant] But Roman engineers invented a new craft, which carried a boarding bridge across which the Roman infantrymen stormed the hostile ship. Then there was a sudden end to Carthaginian victories.


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[Assistant] Rome, in quest of copper, had taken the island of Sardinia. Carthage, in quest of silver, thereupon occupied all of southern Spain.


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[Assistant] This made Carthage a direct neighbor of the Romans. The latter did not like this at all, and they ordered their troops to cross the Pyrenees and watch the Carthaginian army of occupation.


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[Assistant] The stage was set for the second outbreak between the two rivals. Once more, a Greek colony was the pretext for a war.


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[Assistant] The Carthaginians were besieging Saguntum on the east coast of Spain. The Saguntians appealed to Rome, and Rome, as usual, was willing to help. The Senate promised the help of the Latin armies.


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[Assistant] But the preparation for this expedition took some time


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[Assistant] A second division was to keep the Carthaginian armies occupied in Spain to prevent them from rushing to the aid of the hometown.


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[Assistant] It was an excellent plan and everybody expected a great victory, but the gods had decided otherwise.


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[Assistant] It was the fall of the year 218 before the birth of Christ, and the Roman army which was to attack the Carthaginians in Spain had left Italy.


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[Assistant] People were eagerly waiting for news of an easy and complete victory when a terrible rumor began to spread through the plain of the Po.


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[Assistant] Wild mountaineers, their lips trembling with fear, told of hundreds of thousands of brown men accompanied by strange beasts, each one as big as a house, who had suddenly emerged from the clouds of snow which surrounded the old Grian Pass through which Hercules, thousands of years before, had driven the oxen of Geryon on his way from Spain to Greece.


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[Assistant] Soon an endless stream of the draggled refugees appeared before the gates of Rome with more complete details. Hannibal, the son of Himilcar,


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[Assistant] Then he had joined forces with the Gauls, and together they had defeated a second Roman army just before they crossed the Trebia and laid siege to Placentia, the northern terminus of the road which connected Rome with the province of the Alpine districts. Here you see a picture of Hannibal crossing the Alps.


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[Assistant] The Senate, surprised but calm and energetic as usual, hushed up the news of these many defeats and sent two fresh armies to stop the invader. Hannibal managed to surprise these troops on a narrow road along the shores of the Trasimene Lake, and there he killed all the Roman officers and most of their men.


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[Assistant] This time there was a panic among the people of Rome, but the Senate kept its nerve.


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[Assistant] A third army was organized and the command was given to Quintus Fabius Maximus with full power to act as was necessary to save the state.


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[Assistant] His raw and untrained men, the last available soldiers, were no match for Hannibal's veterans. He refused to accept battle, but forever he followed Hannibal, destroyed everything eatable.


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[Assistant] Destroyed the roads, attacked small detachments, and generally weakened the morale of the Carthaginian troops by a most distressing and annoying form of guerrilla warfare.


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[Assistant] Such methods, however, did not satisfy the fearsome crowds who had found safety behind the walls of Rome. They wanted action. Something must be done, and must be done quickly.


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[Assistant] The popular hero by the name of Varro, the sort of man who went about the city telling everybody how much better he could do things than slow old Fabius, the Delayer, was made commander-in-chief by popular acclamation.


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[Assistant] At the Battle of Cannae, he suffered the most terrible defeat of Roman history. More than seventy thousand men were killed. Hannibal was master of all Italy.


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[Assistant] He marched from one end of the peninsula to the other, proclaiming himself the deliverer from the yoke of Rome, and asking the different provinces to join him in warfare upon the mother city.


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[Assistant] Then once more the wisdom of Rome bore noble fruit. With the exceptions of Capua and Syracuse, all Roman cities remained loyal. Hannibal, the Deliverer,


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[Assistant] Found himself opposed by the people whose friend he pretended to be. He was far away from home and did not like the situation.


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[Assistant] He sent messengers to Carthage to ask for fresh supplies and new men. Alas, Carthage could not send him either. The Romans with their boarding-bridges were the masters of the sea. Hannibal must help himself as best as he could.


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[Assistant] But his own numbers were decreasing rapidly, and the Italian peasants held aloof from this self-appointed deliverer. After many years of uninterrupted victories,


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[Assistant] Hannibal found himself besieged in the country which he had just conquered. For a moment, the luck seemed to turn.


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[Assistant] Hasdrabal, his brother, had defeated the Roman armies in Spain.


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[Assistant] He had crossed the Alps to come to Hannibal's assistance. He sent messengers to the south to tell of his arrival, and asked the other army to meet him in the plain of the Tiber.


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[Assistant] Unfortunately, the messengers fell into the hands of the Romans, and Hannibal waited in vain for further news until his brother's head


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[Assistant] And four years later, the Romans were ready for a final attack upon Carthage. Hannibal was called back.


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[Assistant] He crossed the African Sea and tried to organize the defenses of his home city. In the year 202 at the Battle of Zama, the Carthaginians were defeated. Hannibal fled to Tyre. From there he went to Asia Minor to stir up the Syrians and the Macedonians against Rome.


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[Assistant] He accomplished very little, but his activities among these Asiatic powers gave the Romans an excuse to carry their warfare into the territory of the East and annex the greater part of the Aegean world. Here you see a map showing a picture of Hannibal's movements around the country of Italy and back into Carthage.


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[Assistant] driven from one city to another a fugitive without a home


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[Assistant] His beloved city of Carthage had been ruined by the war. She had been forced to sign a terrible peace. Her navy had been sunk.


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[Assistant] She had been forbidden to make war without Roman permission.


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[Assistant] She had been condemned to pay the Romans millions of dollars for endless years to come. Life offered no hope of a better future.


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[Assistant] Here you see a picture of Hannibal having taken the poison and passing away.


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[Assistant] Forty years later, the Romans forced their last war upon Carthage. Three long years, the inhabitants of the old Phoenician colony held out against the power of the New Republic. Hunger forced them to surrender.


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[Assistant] The few men and women who had survived the siege were sold to slaves. The city was set on fire.


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[Assistant] For two whole weeks the storehouses and the palaces and the great arsenal burned. Then a terrible curse was pronounced upon the blackened ruins, and the Roman legions returned to Italy to enjoy their victory.


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[Assistant] For the next thousand years, the Mediterranean remained a European sea. But as soon as the Roman Empire had been destroyed,


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[Assistant] Asia made another attempt to dominate this great inland sea, as you will learn when I tell you about Muhammad.


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[Assistant] Chapter 15 Deeper Magic from Before the Dawn of Time


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[Assistant] While the two girls still crouched in the bushes with their hands over their faces, they heard the voice of the witch calling out,


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[Assistant] At this moment, the children were for a few seconds in very great danger.


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[Assistant] For with wild cries and a noise of skirling pipes and shrill horns blowing, the whole of that vile rabble came sweeping off the hilltop and down the slope right past their hiding place.


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[Assistant] They felt the spectres go by them like a cold wind, and they felt the ground shake beneath them under the galloping feet of the minotaurs. And overhead, they went a flurry of foul wings and a blackness of vultures and giant bats. At any other time, they would have trembled with fear.


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[Assistant] But now the sadness and shame and horror of Aslan's death so filled their minds that they hardly thought of it. As soon as the wood was silent again,


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[Assistant] Susan and Lucy crept out onto the open hilltop.


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[Assistant] The moon was getting low, and thin clouds were passing across her.


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[Assistant] But still they could see the shape of the lion, lying dead in his bonds.


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[Assistant] And down they both knelt in the wet grass and kissed his cold face and stroked his beautiful fur, what was left of it.


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[Assistant] And cried till they could cry no more.


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[Assistant] And then they looked at each other and held each other's hands for mere loneliness and cried again and then again were silent. At last Lucy said, I can't bear to look at that horrible muzzle. I wonder, could we take it off? So they tried and after a lot of working at it,


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[Assistant] For their fingers were cold and it was now the darkest part of the night. They succeeded.


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[Assistant] And when they saw his face without it, they burst out crying again and kissed it and fondled it and wiped away the blood and the foam as well as they could.


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[Assistant] And it was all more lonely and hopeless and horrid than I know how to describe. I wonder, could we untie him as well? said Susan presently.


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[Assistant] But the enemies, out of pure spitefulness, had drawn the cords so tight that the girls could make nothing of the knots.


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[Assistant] I hope no one who reads this book has been quite as miserable as Susan and Lucy were that night. But if you have been...


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[Assistant] If you've been up all night and cried till you have no more tears left in you, you will know that there comes in the end a sort of quietness.


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[Assistant] You feel as if nothing was ever going to happen again.


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[Assistant] At any rate, that was how it felt to these two.


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[Assistant] Hours and hours seem to go by in this dead calm.


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[Assistant] And they hardly noticed they were getting colder and colder.


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[Assistant] But at last, Lucy noticed two other things.


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[Assistant] One was that the sky on the east side of the hill.


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[Assistant] Was a little less dark than it had been an hour ago.


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[Assistant] The other was some tiny movement going on in the grass at her feet.


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[Assistant] At first she took no interest in this. What did it matter? Nothing mattered now. But at last...


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[Assistant] She saw that whatever it was had begun to move up the upright stones of the stone table, and now whatever they were were moving about on Aslan's body. She peered closer. They were little grey things. Ah! said Susan from the other side of the table. How beastly! There are horrid little mice crawling over him. Go away, you little beasts!


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[Assistant] And she raised her hand to frighten them away. Wait, said Lucy who had been looking at them more closely still.


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[Assistant] Both girls bent down and stared. I do believe, said Susan, but how queer. They're nibbling away at the cords. That's what I thought, said Lucy. I think they're friendly mice. Poor little things. They don't realize he's dead. They think it'll do some good untying him. It was quite definitely lighter by now.


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[Assistant] Each of the girls noticed for the first time the white face of the other.


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[Assistant] One by one, the ropes were all gnawed through. The sky in the east was whitish by now, and the stars were getting fainter.


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[Assistant] All except one very big one low down on the eastern horizon. They felt colder than they had been all night. The mice crept away again.


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[Assistant] The girls cleared away the remains of the gnawed ropes. Aslan looked more like himself


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[Assistant] Every moment his dead face looked nobler as the light grew and they could see it better.


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[Assistant] In the wood behind them, a bird gave a chuckling sound.


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[Assistant] It had been so still for hours and hours that it startled them. Then another bird answered it.


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[Assistant] Soon there were birds singing all over the place. It was quite definitely early morning now, not late night. I'm so cold, said Lucy. So am I, said Susan. Let's walk about a bit.


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[Assistant] They walked to and fro more times than they could count between the dead Aslan and the eastern ridge, trying to keep warm.


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[Assistant] And oh, how tired their legs felt. Then at last,


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[Assistant] As they stood for a moment looking out toward the sea and care parallel, which they could now just make out.


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[Assistant] Turned to gold along the line where the sea and the sky met, and very slowly, up came the edge of the sun.


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[Assistant] At that moment they heard from behind them a loud noise.


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[Assistant] A great cracking, deafening noise, as if a giant had broken a giant's plate.


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[Assistant] Said Lucy, clutching Susan's arm. I, I feel afraid to turn round, said Susan. Something awful is happening. They're doing something worse to him, said Lucy. Come on. And she turned, pulling Susan round with her.


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[Assistant] The rising of the sun had made everything look so different. All colours and shadows were changed.


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[Assistant] That for a moment they didn't see the important thing. Then they did.


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[Assistant] The stone table was broken into two pieces by a great crack that ran down it from end to end, and there was no Aslan.


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[Assistant] Oh, cried the two girls, rushing back to the table. Oh, it's too bad, sobbed Lucy. They, they might have left the body alone. Who's done it? cried Susan. What does it mean? Is it more magic? Yes.


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[Assistant] cried both the children, staring up at him, almost as much frightened as they were glad. Aren't you dead then, dear Aslan? said Lucy. Not now, said Aslan. You're not, not, not a... asked Susan in a shaky voice. She couldn't bring herself to say the word ghost.


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[Assistant] Aslan stooped his golden head and licked her forehead. The warmth of his breath and a rich sort of smell that seemed to hang about his hair came all over her. Do I look it? He said.


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[Assistant] cried Lucy, and both girls flung themselves upon him and covered him with kisses. But what does it all mean? asked Susan when they were somewhat calmer. It means, said Aslan, that though the witch knew the deep magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know.


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[Assistant] Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back...


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[Assistant] Into the stillness and the darkness before time dawns.


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[Assistant] She would have read there a different incantation.


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[Assistant] She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the table would crack.


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[Assistant] And death itself would start working backward. And now? Oh yes, now. Said Lucy, jumping up and clapping her hands.


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[Assistant] Oh children, said the lion.


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[Assistant] I feel my strength coming back to me.


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[Assistant] He stood for a second, his eyes very bright, his limbs quivering, lashing himself with his tail.


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[Assistant] Then he made a leap high over their heads and landed on the other side of the table.


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[Assistant] Laughing, though she didn't know why, Lucy scrambled over it to reach him. Aslan leaped again.


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[Assistant] A mad chase began, round and round the hilltop he led them, now hopelessly out of their reach, now letting them almost catch his tail, now diving between them, now tossing them in the air with his huge and beautifully velveted paws, and catching them again.


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[Assistant] And now stopping unexpectedly so that all three of them rolled over together in a happy laughing heap of fur and arms and legs.


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[Assistant] It was such a rump as no one has ever had except in Narnia.


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[Assistant] And whether it was more like playing with a thunderstorm or playing with a kitten, Lucy could never make up her mind.


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[Assistant] And the funny thing was that when all three finally lay together panting in the sun, the girls no longer felt in the least tired or hungry or thirsty.


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[Assistant] And now? said Aslan presently.


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[Assistant] To business. I feel I'm going to roar. You had better put your fingers in your ears. And they did.


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[Assistant] And Aslan stood up, and when he opened his mouth to roar, his face became so terrible that they did not dare to look at it.


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[Assistant] And they saw all the trees in front of him bend before the blast of his roaring as grass bends in a meadow before the wind. Then he said, we have a long journey to go. You must ride on me. And he crouched down.


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[Assistant] And the children climbed onto his warm, golden back.


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[Assistant] And Susan sat first, holding on tightly to his mane.


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[Assistant] And Lucy sat behind, holding on tightly to Susan. And with a great heave, he rose underneath them.


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[Assistant] And then shot off faster than any horse could go downhill and into the thick of the forest.


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[Assistant] That ride was perhaps the most wonderful thing that happened to them in Narnia. Have you ever had a gallop on a horse?


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[Assistant] Think of that, and then take away the heavy noise of the hoofs and the jingle of the bits and imagine instead.


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[Assistant] The almost noiseless padding of the great paws.


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[Assistant] Then, imagine instead of the black or grey or chestnut back of the horse,


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[Assistant] The soft roughness of golden fur and the mane flying back in the wind. And then...


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[Assistant] Imagine you are going about twice as fast as the fastest racehorse.


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[Assistant] This is a mount that doesn't need to be guided and never grows tired. He rushes on and on, never missing his footing, never hesitating, threading his way with perfect skill between tree trunks.


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[Assistant] Jumping over bush and briar and the smaller streams wading the larger, swimming the largest of all.


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[Assistant] And you are riding, not on a road, nor in a park, nor even on the downs, but right across Narnia.


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[Assistant] In spring, down solemn avenues of beach and across sunny glades of oak.


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[Assistant] Through wild orchards of snow-white cherry trees, past roaring waterfalls and mossy rocks and echoing caverns, up windy slopes alight with gorse bushes and across the shoulders of heathery mountains and along giddy ridges and down, down,


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[Assistant] Down again into wild valleys and out into acres of blue flowers.


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[Assistant] It was nearly midday when they found themselves looking down a steep hillside at a castle. A little toy castle it looked from where they stood, which seemed to be all pointed towers.


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[Assistant] But the lion was rushing down at such a speed that it grew larger every moment.


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[Assistant] And before they had time even to ask themselves what it was, they were already on a level with it.


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[Assistant] Now it no longer looked like a toy castle, but rose frowning in front of them.


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[Assistant] No face looked over the battlements, and the gates were fast shut.


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[Assistant] And Aslan, not at all slacking his pace, rushed straight as a bullet toward it.


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[Assistant] The witch is home, he cried.


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[Assistant] Next moment, the whole world seemed to turn upside down, and the children felt as if they had left their insides behind them.


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[Assistant] For the lion had gathered himself together for a greater leap than any he had yet made and jumped.


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[Assistant] Or you may call it flying rather than jumping right over the castle wall. The two girls, breathless but unhurt,


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[Assistant] Found themselves tumbling off his back in the middle of a white stone courtyard full of statues.


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[Assistant] CHAPTER 64 AS IT SHALL EVER BE


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[Assistant] The more I think of the problems of our lives, the more I am persuaded that we ought to choose irony and pity for our assessors and judges as the ancient Egyptians called upon the goddess Isis and the goddess Nephthys on behalf of their dead.


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[Assistant] Irony and pity are both of good counsel. The first with her smiles makes life agreeable. The other sanctifies it with her tears. The irony which I invoke is no cruel deity. She mocks neither love nor beauty. She is gentle and kindly disposed.


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[Assistant] Her mirth disarms, and it is she who teaches us to laugh at rogues and fools, whom but for her we might be so weak as to despise and hate. And with these wise words of a very great Frenchman, I bid you farewell.


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[Assistant] End of chapter 64.


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[Assistant] The fool has come! Find him fast!


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[Assistant] Did you think that by all this you would save the human traitor?


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[Assistant] Now I will kill you instead of him, as our pact was, and so the deep magic will be appeased.


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[Assistant] But when you are dead, what will prevent me from killing him as well?


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[Assistant] And who will take him out of my hand then?


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[Assistant] Understand that you have given me Narnia forever. You have lost your own life and you have not saved his. In that knowledge, despair and die.


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[Assistant] This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.


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[Assistant] And why Europe would have perished without those professional soldiers and administrators who were part of the feudal system?


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[Assistant] When most people were so unhappy that they welcomed the prophecy for telling the approaching end of the world and rushed to the monasteries,


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[Assistant] At an unknown date, the Germanic tribes had left their old home in Asia, and had moved westward into Europe.


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[Assistant] They had destroyed the great western empire, but the eastern part, being off the main route of the great migrations, had managed to survive and feebly continued the traditions of Rome's ancient glory. During the days of disorder which had followed,


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[Assistant] The German tribes had been persuaded to accept the Christian religion, and had recognized the Bishop of Rome as the Pope, or spiritual head of the world.


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[Assistant] During the 10th century, this empire had gone to pieces. The western part had become a separate kingdom, France.


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[Assistant] And the rulers of this federation of states then pretended that they were the direct heirs of Caesar and Augustus.


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[Assistant] Unfortunately, the power of the kings of France did not stretch beyond the moat of their royal residence, while the Holy Roman Emperor was openly defied by his powerful subjects whenever it suited their fancy or their profit.


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[Assistant] To increase the misery of the masses of the people, the triangle of Western Europe, look at page 128, please.


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[Assistant] Was forever exposed to attacks from three sides.


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[Assistant] The peace of Rome was a thing of the remote past, a dream of the good old days that were gone for ever.


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[Assistant] It was a question of fight or die, and quite naturally people preferred to fight.


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[Assistant] Forced by circumstances, Europe became an armed camp, and there was a demand for strong leadership. Both king and emperor were far away.


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[Assistant] The frontiersmen, and most of Europe in the year 1000 was frontier, must help themselves.


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[Assistant] They willingly submitted to the representatives of the King who were sent to administer the outlying districts.


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[Assistant] Provided they could protect them against their enemies.


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[Assistant] Soon Central Europe was dotted with small principalities, each one ruled by a duke or a count or a baron or a bishop.


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[Assistant] As the case might be and organized as a fighting unit.


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[Assistant] These dukes and counts and barons had sworn to be faithful to the king who had given them their feudum, hence our word feudal,


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[Assistant] In return for their loyal services and a certain amount of taxes. But travel in those days was slow and the means of communication were exceedingly poor.


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[Assistant] The royal or imperial administrators therefore enjoyed great independence, and within the boundaries of their own province they assumed most of the rights which in truth belonged to the king.


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[Assistant] Their lord and master usually lived in a big stone house, erected on the top of a steep rock or built between deep moats, but within sight of his subjects.


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[Assistant] In case of danger, the subjects found shelter behind the walls of the baronial stronghold.


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[Assistant] But the knight of the early Middle Ages was much more than a professional soldier. He was the civil servant of that day, he was the judge of his community, and he was the chief of police.


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[Assistant] He caught the highwaymen and protected the wandering peddlers, who were the merchants of the eleventh century.


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[Assistant] He looked after the dykes so that the countryside should not be flooded.


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[Assistant] He encouraged the troubadours who wandered from place to place, telling the stories of the ancient heroes who had fought in the great wars of the migrations.


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[Assistant] Besides, he protected the churches and the monasteries within his territory, and although he could neither read nor write, it was considered unmanly to know such things,


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[Assistant] He employed a number of priests, who kept his accounts, and who registered the marriages and the births and the deaths which occurred within the baronial or ducal domains.


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[Assistant] In the 15th century, the kings once more became strong enough to exercise those powers which belonged to them because they were anointed of God.


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[Assistant] There were many bad nights, as there are many bad people today, but generally speaking, the rough-fisted barons of the twelfth and thirteenth century were hard-working administrators,


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[Assistant] During that era the noble torch of learning and art, which had illuminated the world of the Egyptians and the Greeks and the Romans, was burning very low.


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[Assistant] Without the knights and their good friends, the monks, civilization would have been extinguished entirely, and the human race would have been forced to begin once more, where the caveman had left off.


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[Assistant] When I was a boy, I used to be taken to a museum, which had copies of all the great Greek sculptures made out of plaster. Plaster casts, they are called.


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[Assistant] The statues that I liked best of all, I learned afterward.


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[Assistant] Were not considered so good as those I've told you about in the last chapter. That seems to be the way with boys.


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[Assistant] They like certain things when they are boys, and different things when they grow up.


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[Assistant] My special favorite was a statue which the label called the Dying Gladiator. What is a gladiator? I asked. A gladiator, I was told, was a swordsman.


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[Assistant] And gladiators were prisoners or slaves who were made to fight each other until one or the other died.


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[Assistant] Just for the amusement of a crowd of people who gathered in a field surrounded by seats, like a football stadium, to watch the sport.


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[Assistant] I didn't learn till later that the label on the statue was wrong.


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[Assistant] That it should have been the dying gall, and not the dying gladiator.


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[Assistant] The Gauls were a barbaric people who lived in the country that is now France.


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[Assistant] The Gauls fought the Greeks, and this Gaul was killed in battle. He wore a twisted collar on his neck, a torc, it was called. That's how we know he was a Gaul, for Gauls wore this particular kind of collar. This statue showed the wound in the man's side, made by the sword, and the stony blood flowing from it. There was a card on the statue, don't touch.


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[Assistant] But I could hardly keep from touching the sword wound from which the blood flowed. It seemed so very natural.


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[Assistant] Come away, said my mother. It's dreadful, a man dying. Let's look at the Apollo Belvedere. This is one of the most beautiful statues of a man ever made. Is that a man? I exclaimed. He looks like a woman.


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[Assistant] That's just because he has long hair. And it is put up on the top of his head in the way many Greek men wore their hair.


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[Assistant] Apollo, as I've told you, was the sun god, and the handsomest of all the Greek gods.


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[Assistant] We don't know what he is supposed to be doing in this statue.


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[Assistant] Some say he was holding a bow in his left hand and had just pulled the bow string with his right hand and shot a dreadful dragon-like serpent called a python that killed everyone who came near him.


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[Assistant] Others say Apollo was holding the head of Medusa in his left hand to turn his enemy into stone. Apollo, Minerva,


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[Assistant] And Perseus all had copies of Medusa's head to kill their enemies with. Belvedere means beautiful to see.


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[Assistant] But the Apollo was called Belvedere not because he was beautiful to see.


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[Assistant] But because the room in which the statue stands now in the Vatican Museum in Rome is called the Belvedere Room.


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[Assistant] But I was more interested in the statues that told a story.


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[Assistant] Especially if the stories seem to be something terrible.


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[Assistant] Lyakoun was a Trojan priest who told his people that the Greeks were putting over a trick on them.


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[Assistant] Just then, two huge snakes attacked Leokoon's sons.


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[Assistant] He went to save them, and all three were killed by the serpents.


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[Assistant] The people believe this was a sign that Layaka-un was not telling the truth about their enemy.


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[Assistant] Though it afterward turned out too late that he was right.


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[Assistant] Not one, but three sculptors are said to have made this statue.


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[Assistant] Why is it that some people, especially boys, like to see pictures and statues of suffering and dying?


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[Assistant] But now I wouldn't have a picture or a statue of such a thing in my house. It is too unpleasant to have around.


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[Assistant] But in olden times, many people were bloodthirsty and loved to see killings. And statues of killing and suffering.


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[Assistant] They went to fights and took their luncheons along to eat while they watched and gloated over the fighting and especially over fights that ended in death.


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[Assistant] There are still people who like to see bullfights and to visit slaughterhouses. But there was one little statue I've always liked.


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[Assistant] It is not the statue of a god or a mythical person. Not even of a grown-up.


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[Assistant] It is of a boy pulling a thorn out of his bare foot.


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[Assistant] And it shows us that boys who go barefooted nowadays are very much like boys who went barefooted 2000 years ago.


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[Assistant] One other statue made just before Christ was born was so huge that there was no plaster cast of it.


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[Assistant] It was a bronze statue of the Sun God, about 100 feet high.


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[Assistant] And was so placed that the god's legs straddled the entrance to a harbor in the island of Rhodes, and ships went in and out of the harbor between the legs. It was called the Colossus of Rhodes. It was one of the seven wonders of the world. For some reason, perhaps in an earthquake, the Colossus fell and the broken pieces were sold for junk.


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[Assistant] Pictures of the Indians with their horses and dogs and rolled up teepees taking the trail to new hunting grounds. Pictures of cowboys with their sick shooters and lariats riding the herd or roping broncos.


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[Assistant] Pictures of half-breed hunters with their fur caps and trusty rifles making their way through a heavy snowstorm?


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[Assistant] Pictures of soldiers of the United States cavalry patrolling the Indian country to keep order and protect property? Are these the kinds of pictures you like? If they aren't, I'll be disappointed, for I like them very much.


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[Assistant] Even if they were painted by a poor painter, I'm afraid I'd like such pictures just because I can't help liking Indians and cowboys and soldiers.


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[Assistant] There was an American artist who painted such pictures very well. His name was Frederick Remington.


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[Assistant] Frederick Remington didn't sit home in his studio and ask Indians to come and pose for him.


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[Assistant] He went out to the wild west and painted them as he saw them living their daily lives. He wasn't a sissy painter.


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[Assistant] Even if Frederick Remington had never written books about his life in the cowboy country,


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[Assistant] We should know by his paintings that he lived there among real cowboys and Indians.


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[Assistant] At first, Remington didn't paint. He drew.


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[Assistant] An illustrator's job was to draw pictures in black and white for magazines and books.


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[Assistant] He was something like a human camera. Trained to put down on paper, with pen and ink, life in the West just as it was. So people in the East could know what it was like.


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[Assistant] Often illustrators do not become great painters. And at first Remington wasn't a great painter.


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[Assistant] When he began to paint with colors instead of simply drawing with pen or pencil, he showed the cowboys and Indians alright. But the colors he used were too bright and glaring.


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[Assistant] Of course, on the plains and badlands of the west, the colors that he saw were really bright and glaring in the brilliant sunlight and clear atmosphere.


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[Assistant] Gradually, however, his pictures became better paintings as he learned to use the bright colors better.


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[Assistant] His later pictures are really fine paintings, I think, and not just brightly colored illustrations.


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[Assistant] Frederick Remington didn't paint the exciting happenings only.


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[Assistant] He liked to paint his Indians for instance as plain everyday Indian people and not to have them always dressed in feathers and war paint. In other words,


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[Assistant] His pictures show us the real Indians. Lazy or hardworking, bad or good, dirty or clean, out hunting, or at home on the reservation.


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[Assistant] And not just the picture book kind of Indians, which you can see in a Wild West show or in the movies.


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[Assistant] His soldiers are not always dressed up for parade or marching forth to a stirring band, like picture book soldiers.


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[Assistant] But are real men, cooking their suppers over the campfire, guarding wagon trains, cleaning their horses. His cowboys are real cowboys working for their living.


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[Assistant] Not just the sort of cowboys we see in the moving pictures.


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[Assistant] Men with the bark on is what Remington called these rough and ready men of the west.


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[Assistant] And as for horses, Frederick Remington, let me tell you, could paint horses that were real horses. People aren't all alike. Neither are horses.


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[Assistant] Frederick Remington's horses aren't just picture book horses any more than his Indians or picture book Indians. Each horse is a special horse, different from any other horse.


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[Assistant] They are stupid or bright, wicked or gentle, lazy or full of life, just as real horses are.


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[Assistant] Besides being a wonderful illustrator, a writer, and a good painter, Remington was a sculptor.


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[Assistant] He made statues of men on horseback that seemed to be full of life and action.


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[Assistant] You can see one of these statues, a bronze cowboy on horseback, if you go to Philadelphia. It stands in Fairmount Park.


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[Assistant] So, if you want to see what the real Wild West was like, not so many years ago, get hold of a book illustrated by Frederick Remington. You'll really enjoy the pictures.


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[Assistant] Remington was an American painter who painted American people. So was a later painter named George Bellows.


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[Assistant] George Bellows also painted the kind of pictures I think you'll like.


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[Assistant] Only his pictures are of the eastern part of the country. Especially in and about New York City. Bellows wasn't a sissy any more than Remington.


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[Assistant] He was such a good baseball player on his college team that he almost became a professional ballplayer, but decided to be a painter instead. He always liked athletics.


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[Assistant] Some of his pictures show men and boys in swimming along the New York waterfront. Some are of polo games. And some very well known ones are of boxing matches.


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[Assistant] George Bellows painted other pictures of quieter subjects.


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[Assistant] He painted some fine pictures of old ladies and little girls.


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[Assistant] But Bellows illustrations were made in a very different way.


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[Assistant] They were made first on smooth stone and then printed with ink on paper from the stone. This kind of picture is known as a lithograph. Bellows was an unusually fine lithographer.


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[Assistant] During the World War, Bellows made a famous lithograph showing the English Red Cross nurse, Edith Cavell, who was shot by the enemy as a spy.


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[Assistant] One of Bello's well-known paintings is of the boxing match between Dempsey and Furpo for the heavyweight championship of the world.


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[Assistant] Furpa was a South American boxer who was very strong.


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[Assistant] He was called the wild bull of the pampas because of his tremendous strength.


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[Assistant] Once in the match, the wild bull knocked Dempsey right through the ropes and down into the laps of the people looking on.


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[Assistant] But this didn't seem to damage Dempsey much, for he finally won the match.


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[Assistant] Bellow's picture shows Dempsey sailing out of the ring after Furpo's powerful punch.


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[Assistant] The picture is very dark in some places and very bright in others. Because all the light was turned on the ring like a big ceiling spotlight on the stage.


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[Assistant] You will also see that Bellows could paint a quiet picture. Look at the portrait of his mother.


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[Assistant] It isn't very much like Whistler's picture of his mother, is it? Yet.


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[Assistant] The two mothers seem to be about the same age. Notice the dark and light in this picture.


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[Assistant] Bellows seemed to like to have some very dark parts and some very light parts in his paintings, and also in his lithographs. If you were a boy, probably you will like the boxing pictures best. If you were a girl, perhaps you'll like the quieter pictures that Bellows painted. Whichever kind you prefer, you can find among the works of George Bellows.


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[Assistant] George Bellows and Frederick Remington are just two of the many American artists that should be in a history book of art.


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[Assistant] I wish I could tell you about the other American painters.


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[Assistant] But to tell about them all would make this book very much too fat, and no one likes too fat a book.


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[Assistant] It would be fun to tell you of the artists who are still alive and painting pictures while you are growing up.


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[Assistant] I have hardly mentioned the wall paintings, mural paintings, we call them.


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[Assistant] That are being used more and more to decorate the rooms in new buildings of America.


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[Assistant] You remember those of Sargent in the Boston Public Library.


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[Assistant] Almost every large city in the United States now has good mural paintings in some of its buildings.


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[Assistant] If you live in a city, try to find out where these mural paintings are and then go to see them. They are very interesting. When you learn the name of the artist who painted them,


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[Assistant] See how much you can learn about his other paintings and about him.


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[Assistant] You can have fun on a rainy day making a scrapbook of American paintings and statues.


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[Assistant] Look for pictures of them in magazines and in advertisements. Often there are pictures of paintings there. American art isn't mostly in the past.


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[Assistant] It's being produced right now, along with new kinds of airplanes, automobiles, and skyscrapers.


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[Assistant] Real artists are even painting pictures for magazine advertisements Boys and girls like to collect things


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[Assistant] And a collection you could be proud of would be a scrapbook of American art. I know scrapbooks are fun to make because I've made them myself. I'm making one now.


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[Assistant] Try one yourself and get some fun out of all this art that is being produced in your country.


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[Assistant] And, if you like real men artists, don't forget Remington and Bellows.


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[Assistant] The Egyptian sculpture in the full round was usually giant size, as tall as a house or the other extreme.


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[Assistant] Tiny statues, only an inch or so high.


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[Assistant] The statues of their kings and important people.


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[Assistant] The Egyptian sculptors usually made of giant size. Colossal.


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[Assistant] They thought a statue the size of an ordinary man or woman was not nearly big enough for a king or a queen.


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[Assistant] The biggest statue in the world is the Great Sphinx, which is near the Three Great Pyramids. It is a huge lion with a king's head.


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[Assistant] But more often they put an animal's head on a man's body. A cat's head or a bird's head on a man's body seems to us most unpleasant. A monstrosity that makes us shudder.


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[Assistant] But a man's head on an animal's body seems only a myth and doesn't shock us.


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[Assistant] The great sphinx was supposed to be the god of the morning, and so faces east.


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[Assistant] Always facing the rising sun and gazing at it unblinkingly as he has done each morning for thousands of years.


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[Assistant] The triangular pieces at the sides of his head are not hair. They are a peculiar hood. There are many more sphinxes in Egypt, but all much smaller than the great sphinx.


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[Assistant] There are two colossal seated figures sitting on thrones side by side, gazing out over the plain.


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[Assistant] They are called, on account of their colossal size, the colossi, and each is made out of a single stone. They are weather beaten and broken,


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[Assistant] But you do not need much imagination to see in your mind's eye what they once were. They of course are Egyptian kings. Or rather, two statues of the same king.


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[Assistant] These two also face the sun as it rises in the east.


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[Assistant] And one of them is called the vocal memnon. That is, the singing or sounding memnon. Though memnon was not the king's name. His name was Amenhotep.


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[Assistant] We know the names of few of the old sculptors who made the statues.


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[Assistant] But we do know the name of this sculptor who made these statues of Amenhotep.


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[Assistant] We know the names of few of the old sculptors who made the statues.


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[Assistant] But we do know the name of this sculptor who made these statues of Amenhotep. For he had the same name as the king. Perhaps he was a slave.


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[Assistant] When we had slavery in our own country, a slave often used to take the name of his master.


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[Assistant] For some reason that no one has ever perfectly explained, the vocal memnon gave forth sounds.


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[Assistant] Perhaps like the tones of a great organ when the sun rose, a hymn to a new day.


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[Assistant] Though the vocal memnon did not sing every morning or even every year. When it did sing, it was supposed to be a sign of something. An omen, people called it. But an omen of what? No one knows.


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[Assistant] It is believed that about the time of Christ it was upset by an earthquake


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[Assistant] And that when it was replaced, it seized its morning song.


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[Assistant] It has not sung for nearly two thousand years, and some people doubt that it ever did.


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[Assistant] Though people even at the time of Christ used to travel long distances just to hear it sing and were disappointed if it didn't.


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[Assistant] Have carved on the base their names and date when they did hear it.


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[Assistant] Some scientists think the sun's rays striking the cold stone in the morning wrought some change that made the sound.


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[Assistant] It is strange that one of the oldest pieces of sculpture in the world is made of wood.


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[Assistant] Strange because wood, of course, does not usually last as long as stone.


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[Assistant] Perhaps to show that he was not a king or any important person.


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[Assistant] By some people, he is called the schoolmaster of Bulak.


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[Assistant] So you can see what a school teacher may have looked like thousands of years ago.


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[Assistant] But others say there were no regular schools or teachers then, and they call him the sheik or chief of a tribe.


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[Assistant] Still others say no. He looks like the boss of a gang of workmen, and they believe he was the boss of a gang that worked on the great pyramid.


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[Assistant] So you can take your choice. For no one knows his name or what he was or who made him.


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[Assistant] The statue is in the great museum at Cairo, the capital of Egypt.


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[Assistant] Though it was made so long ago, it looks much more natural and lifelike than later Egyptian sculpture. Like a real person.


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[Assistant] It is said that even the old Egyptians thought it so natural that they chained its feet to keep it from walking off.


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[Assistant] Another figure made about the same time is of a man seated and holding a writing tablet on his lap. It is of stone and it was painted. Not the natural color of a man, but guess what color? Red. He was a professional writer. That is, one of the few men who knew how to write and made a business of writing for those who could not write.


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[Assistant] And most people at that time could not. Think of hiring a stranger to write your letters. Such a person was called a scribe.


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[Assistant] He was a kind of secretary who took dictation.


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[Assistant] Even kings and queens could not write and had to have scribes to write for them.


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[Assistant] This figure is now in the Louvre in Paris, to which place, of course, it was carried from Egypt.


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[Assistant] Often, Egyptian sculptors went to the other extreme in making tiny statuettes.


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[Assistant] Some only a few inches high of their kings and queens.


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[Assistant] They're gods and goddesses and sacred animals.


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[Assistant] Most of these miniature statues were cut out of the hardest kinds of stone.


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[Assistant] Stone that would turn the edge of our modern tools.


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[Assistant] We suspect that they must have been cut with flint tools instead of steel tools. As, nowadays, a diamond, the very hardest of all stones, has to be cut with another diamond or shades by being rubbed with diamond dust.


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[Assistant] The beetle was sacred in Egypt and called a scarab.


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[Assistant] And numberless scarabs made of clay and stone were made to be suspended from the neck, where they acted as a charm for the wearer.


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[Assistant] So popular are these charms that they are manufactured today in great quantities and sold to travelers as real antiques.


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[Assistant] Do you like ghost stories? Stories of haunted houses? Of chains clanking at midnight? Of misty white shapes that you can see right through? Of course, the best time to read a ghost story is at night. Then, though you know the story can't be true, it makes you feel creepy.


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[Assistant] But I'll tell you of one ghost that won't make you feel creepy. This ghost won't even make you tremble in your boots. It's the ghost of a flea. It makes one smile just to think of the ghost of a


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[Assistant] It makes one smile just to think of the ghost of a flea.


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[Assistant] He's a more unusual ghost than that, for this ghost had his portrait drawn by a celebrated artist.


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[Assistant] The artist who drew the picture of the ghost of a flea was William Blake.


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[Assistant] He was an Englishman who was living in London at the time of the American colonies.


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[Assistant] He was an Englishman who was living in London at the time the American colonies were fighting their revolutionary war.


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[Assistant] William Blake was very different from any artist I've told you about so far. For one thing, besides being an artist, he was a poet.


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[Assistant] For another thing, William Blake's pictures are not at all like the pictures of any other artist.


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[Assistant] For still another thing, William Blake saw visions. A vision is something like a dream. It is a sight a person sees only in his mind.


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[Assistant] Some people say that Blake was a little crazy. Just a little crazy. Perhaps he was only different.


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[Assistant] He studied engraving for many years until he became an expert engraver. And then when he set up in business for himself


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[Assistant] Before then, the pictures in a book were engraved on a metal plate, but the words of the book were printed with a printing press.


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[Assistant] Blake made both pictures and words on the same plate, so the story was really part of the pictures, and the pictures were part of the story.