r to the city, was worshiped as Jupiter
Capitolinus, majestic as the conservator of civil and social order. The
charms of art, the graces of song, the effeminacy of festal pleasures
were little recked of by the Roman of the Roman period--he who used his
ancestral speech in the meanings imposed upon its terms by his fathers.
Phoebus Apollo and Pallas Athene were not so much revered by him as
was Mars of the visage stern and the bloody hand, to whom he gloried in
ascribing the blood of Romulus, protected by whom he believed the
"Mavortia moenia" would stand for ever. To him the state was
everything, the citizen nothing, save in so far as he was a working
member of the state. No private pleasure, no private gain, no private
right was admitted which stood in the way of the common weal; and
whatever privileges one might have, belonged to him not as a man, but as
a Roman, reflecting in his own person the sacred being of the state. No
wonder that in spite of all reverses, and until absorption of foreign
poisons had vitiated the blood of her sons or fratricidal strife had
spilled it, Rome saw the world at her feet. No wonder, too, that the
customary greeting of those who used her speech was "Salus!" ("Health!")
at meeting, and "Vale!" ("Be strong!") at parting.

To pass from ancient nations to modern. No race has had, in its way, a
greater influence upon European civilization than the French, many-sided
in character, and whose language is that of modern diplomacy. By no
people are _appearances_ more studied or cared for. Courage,
undoubtedly, is possessed by the men, but a Frenchman (the typical
Frenchman, that is) is better pleased if his courage, whether on the
field of battle, in the private encounter or the civic assembly, can
have a good _mise en scene_ for its exhibition. Deportment is the great
thing; and in social life who can deny what charm is given to friendly
intercourse--even though one may know that feelings are not very
deep--by the studious attention to a pleasant way of saying or doing
things?--so different from the heedless bluntness of some other races,
which, even while it may proceed from no unkindness, yet gives, at any
rate, the impression of disregard for the feelings of others. What a
regard to appearances is not revealed in such common expressions as
"Etre de mauvaise tournure" and "Avoir bonne tournure," as applied to
either man or woman? And as for the women, who can excel a Frenchwoman
in the art of