state, these widow's
weeds my only robes. But it must be more than private grief, and more
than the storms of autumn or of winter, that would keep me back when it
is Aurelian who bids to the feast.'

'We owe you many thanks,' replied the Emperor. 'Would that the loyalty
of the parents were inherited by the children;' casting towards me, as
he saluted me at the same time, a look which seemed to say that he was
partly serious, if partly in jest. After mutual inquiries and
salutations, we were soon seated upon couches beneath a blaze of light
which, from the centre of the apartment, darted its brightness, as it
had been the sun itself, to every part of the room.

'It is no light sorrow to a mother's heart,' said Portia, 'to know that
her two sons, and her only sons, are, one the open enemy of his country,
the other--what shall I term you, Lucius?--an innovator upon her ancient
institutions; and while he believes and calls himself--sincerely, I
doubt not--the friend of his country, is in truth, as every good Roman
would say--not an enemy, my son, I cannot use that word, but as it
were--an unconscious injurer. Would that the conqueror of the world had
power to conquer this boy's will!'

'Aurelian, my mother,' I replied, 'did he possess the power, would
hesitate to use it in such a cause. But it is easy to see that it would
demand infinitely more power to change one honest mind than to subdue
even the world by the sword.'

Aurelian for a brief moment looked as if he had received a personal
affront.

'How say you,' said he, 'demands it more power to change one mind than
conquer a world? Methinks it might be done with something less. My
soldiers often maintain with violence a certain opinion; but I find it
not difficult to cause them to let it go, and take mine in its place.
The arguments I use never fail.'

'That may be,' I replied, 'in matters of little moment. Even in these
however, is it not plain, Aurelian, that you cause them not to let go
their opinion, but merely to suppress it, or affect to change it? Your
power may compel them either to silence, or to an assertion of the very
contrary of what they but just before had declared as their belief, but
it cannot alter their minds. That is to be done by reason only, not by
force.'

'By reason first,' answered the emperor; 'but if that fail, then by
force. The ignorant, and the presumptuous, and the mischievous, must be
dealt with as we deal with children. If we arg