hen the gods look out for us?" you'll say.
To each of us they have allotted Character
As garrison commander.

Gathering his forces in obedience to his garrison commander Paulus
tried to decide to go back to Rome. Greece called to him insistently.
Confused and exhausted, he joined perfunctorily in the loud applause
that closed the comedy, and in the speeches of gratitude and farewell
to the host.

The play had been long, and the autumn night, he found to his surprise,
had passed. Emerging from the house, he breasted the dawn. With
curious suddenness the sense of conflict left him. The beauty of the
Attic plain, born, unlike the beauty of the Roman Campagna, of light
rather than of unshed tears, had often seemed to him to quicken the
perception of truth. Certainly the dullest eyes must see at this hour,
when, at the behest of the approaching sun, outlines were cleared
of all that was shadowy and fanciful, and colours were touched to
buoyant life. Greece called to him, but with what a message!
Imaginings, vain desires, regrets, were swept away from his mind,
even as the receding shadows left bare the contours of the mountains.
He saw that his concern was with the battle, not with its issue. In
this enlightening hour he understood that Rome would never become
mother of the arts, until, in some unimagined future, through
transforming national experiences, she should be made pregnant with
ideas beyond the ken of his generation. Poets might again be born
of her, but he and his like would long since have been lying among
her forgotten children. And yet, the life of the future, however
distant, would not be unaffected by the obscure work and faith of
the present age. He himself would never see victory, but the struggle
was his inalienable heritage. Revealed in light and joy he knew his
purpose. Down from the crags of Parnes, great wings strong with the
morning, swept an eagle--as if homeward--toward the western sea.
With it, like an arrow to its goal, alert with the vigour of dawn,
aflame with the ardour of life, sped the heart of the young Roman.

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