Argument.
The scene is laid in Rome of the fourteenth century, when the patriot, Rienzi, is leading his insurrection against the nobles. The first act represents a street riot, occasioned by the patricians, under Orsini, who have scaled Rienzi's house by a ladder and are seeking to abduct his sister, Irene.
While Irene struggles for freedom, a rival faction of patricians arrives, led by Colonna, whose son, Adriano, is in love with Irene. Adriano fights his way to her side and protects her. Then, in the midst of the disturbance, Rienzi appears and the crowd scatters.
A prelate, Cardinal Raimondo, asks Rienzi how soon he is going to begin his warfare upon the nobles, and Rienzi replies that when he hears a long trumpet-note sound across the city the hour will have come. He turns to Adriano Colonna, and fervently beseeches him to forsake his party and to join the popular cause of Roman freedom. Remembering Irene, Adriano pledges his loyalty to Rienzi.
He is then left alone with the beautiful girl, and they sink into the tender ecstasies of love, till they are roused by the ominous sound of the trumpet-call which heralds the uprising. The day dawns, and within the church the organ and chorus simultaneously break out to greet it.
Borne in by the populace, Rienzi arrives. The people seek to crown him king of Rome, but the only title he will accept is that of tribune. A great composite voice rises from the piazza, swearing vengeance on the nobles.
Rienzi's cause triumphs, and in the hall of the capitol the patricians are forced to do homage to the victor. Goaded by wounded pride, Orsini forms a conspiracy to stab Rienzi during the festivities which are in preparation.
Adriano hears the plot, and warns Rienzi, who consequently wears, when he appears at the festa, a steel breastplate.
This scene commences in an abandon of joyousness. The crowd cheers a pantomime, and knights fight in tourney.
Suddenly Orsini presses his way to Rienzi's side, and draws his knife. But Rienzi is saved by his breastplate. He sentences all the nobles to death, and the festa ends in tragedy. But Adriano pleads for his father's life, and finally Rienzi pardons all the conspirators on their oath of submission.
The third act is ushered in by alarm-bells. The nobles are again in insurrection; the people clamor for Rienzi, who appears, swearing to exterminate the faithless patricians. He goes out to victory, and presently the body of Colonna is borne past his son, Adriano, who forthwith deserts Rienzi's cause.
Adriano finds his opportunity for revenge in confirming a story which gains credence with the fickle Roman populace; he declares that Rienzi is a traitor to his country, and meant himself to become a noble through the marriage of his sister with Adriano.
Rienzi appears in a procession, marching toward church. As he places his foot on the steps, a malediction sounds from within the sanctuary. Cardinal Raimondo steps to the door and pronounces upon him the ban of excommunication. The nobles have won victory for their cause by an alliance with the Church.
In the hall of the capitol, Rienzi prays that his work for freedom may not be undone. Irene and Adriano enter, and Rienzi begs them to flee together from danger. But Irene refuses to desert her brother's cause. The noise outside the besieged capitol increases.
The scene shifts to the open square, where the populace, deaf to Rienzi, who from a balcony seeks to address them, sets fire to the capitol. Adriano, darting in and out among the mob, sees Irene arm in arm with her brother, within a huge flower of flame which curls about them.
Through the fire he rushes toward her; at that moment the capitol collapses, and he is caught with Rienzi and Irene in its ruins. The nobles turn upon the people, and with drawn swords cut them down like blades of grass.
WHERE ROOSEVELT USED THE PHRASE "THE STRENUOUS LIFE."
In speaking to you, men of the greatest city of the West, men of the State which gave to the country Lincoln and Grant, men who preeminently and distinctly embody all that is most American in the American character, I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life—the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph.
Theodore Roosevelt in a speech delivered before the Hamilton Club of Chicago, April 10, 1899.
SYMBOLISM OF PLAYING-CARDS.
Soldier Arrested for Shuffling the Pasteboards in Church During Divine Service Won His
Liberty by Convincing Magistrate That They May Be Utilized
as Pages of a Prayer-Book.
If the devil invented playing-cards, as more than once has been asserted, he was a very cosmopolitan devil; for cards have been used in every country whose people were intelligent enough to play with them. There is evidence that the Egyptians played cards in the days of Joseph. Later, the Hebrews brought cards into Palestine when they returned from the Babylonian exile. The Chinese played cards at a period when western Europe was a wilderness inhabited by wild beasts and prowling barbarians. In India the pack contained ten suits, each being symbolic of an incarnation of Vishnu.
Europe got its cards, apparently, from the Orient, in the days of the Crusades—for your Crusader was a great gambler. In the European history of the pack we find that the cards have frequently been used as symbols, political or social. But no more remarkable card symbolism has ever been evolved than that which is described in the following brief narrative:
A private soldier by the name of Richard Doe was taken before a magistrate charged with playing cards during divine service.
It appears that a sergeant commanded the soldiers at the church, and when the parson had read the prayers, he took the text.
Those who had Bibles took them out, but this soldier had neither Bible nor Book of Common Prayer. Pulling out a pack of cards, he spread them before him.
The sergeant of the company saw him, and said:
"Richard, put up the cards; this is no place for them."
"Never mind that," said Richard.
When the service was over, a constable took Richard before a magistrate.
"Well," asked the magistrate, "what have you brought the soldier here for?"
"For playing cards in church."
"Prisoner, what have you to say?"
"I have been," said the soldier, "about six weeks on the march. I have neither Bible nor Book of Common Prayer. I have nothing but a pack of cards, and I'll satisfy your worship of the purity of my intentions."
And, spreading the cards before the magistrate, he began with the ace:
"When I see the ace, it reminds me there is but one God. When I see the deuce, it reminds me of Father and Son. When I see the tray, it reminds me of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. When I see the four-spot, it reminds me of the four evangelists—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
"When I meet the five, it reminds me of the five wise virgins that trimmed their lamps—there were ten, but only five were wise, while five were foolish and were shut out.
"When I see the six, it reminds me that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth. When I see the seven, it reminds me that on the seventh day He rested from the great work He had created, and hallowed it.
"When I see the eight, it reminds me of the eight righteous persons that were saved when God destroyed the world—namely, Noah and his wife, with his three sons and their wives. When I see the nine, it reminds me of the nine lepers that were cleansed by our Saviour; there were nine out of ten who never returned thanks.
"When I see the ten, it reminds me of the Ten Commandments which God handed down to Moses on tables of stone. When I see the king, it reminds me of the King of Heaven, which is God Almighty.
"When I see the queen, it reminds me of the Queen of Sheba, who visited Solomon, for she was as wise a woman as he was a man. She brought with her fifty boys and fifty girls, all dressed in boys' apparel, for King Solomon to tell which were boys and which were girls. King Solomon sent for water for them to wash; the girls washed to the elbows and the boys to the wrists, so King Solomon told by that."
"Well," said the magistrate, "you have given a good description of all the cards but one."
"What is that?"
"The knave," said the magistrate.
"I will give your honor a description of that, too, if you will not be angry."
"I will not," said the magistrate, "if you do not term me to be the knave."
"Well," said the soldier, "the greatest knave that I know of is the constable that brought me here."
"I do not know," said the magistrate, "if he is the greatest knave, but I begin to think that he must have been a fool to arrest so devout a man."
"When I count the number of cards in a pack," continued the soldier, "I find there are fifty-two, the number of weeks in a year; and I find four suits, the number of weeks in a month. I find there are twelve picture cards in a pack, representing the number of months in a year; and on counting the tricks, I find thirteen, the number of weeks in a quarter. So, you see, a pack of cards serves for a Bible, almanac, and prayer-book."
THE BATTLE OF THE "YATCHES."
The Rhythmical Lamentation of a British Tar On the Occasion of the Famous Victory
of the Yankee Yacht America in English Waters.
In no branch of sport is there a trophy more valuable or highly cherished than that which is so dear to the hearts of American yachtsmen—the America's Cup. While the original cost of this celebrated piece of silverware was only about five hundred dollars, the expenses of fitting out challengers and defenders and maintaining them while in commission have aggregated many millions of dollars.
The cup was originally offered by the Royal Yacht Club and was won on August 22, 1851, by the American schooner-yacht America, which had as competitors no less than fourteen British yachts. The Yankee boat won by eighteen minutes, and her victory inspired a general feeling of chagrin among the owners and crews of the British boats who had regarded their nation as invincible in the yachting world. The following verses, published shortly after the America's victory, are said to have been written by a sailor on a British ship of war from which a view of the race had been obtained:
Oh, weep, ye British sailors true,
Above or under hatches,
Here's Yankee Doodle's been and come,
And beat our crackest yatches!
They started all to run a race,
And wor well timed with watches;
But oh! they never had no chance,
Had any of our yatches.
The Yankee she delayed at first,
Says they, "She'll never catch us,"
And flung up their tarpaulin hats—
The owners of the yatches!
But presently she walked along;
"Oh, dear," says they, "she'll match us!"
And stuck on their tarpaulin hats,
The builder of our yatches.
Then deep we plows along the sea,
The Yankee scarcely scratches;
And cracks on every stitch of sail
Upon our staggering yatches.
But one by one she passes us,
While bitterly we watches,
And utters imprecations on
The builder of our yatches.
And now she's quite hull down a-head,
Her sails like little patches,
For sand-barges and colliers we
May sell our boasted yatches.
We faintly hear the club-house gun—
The silver cup she snatches—
And all the English clubs are done,
The English clubs of yatches!
They say she didn't go by wind,
But wheels, and springs, and satches;
And that's the way she weathered on
Our quickest-going yatches.
But them's all lies, I'm bound to say—
Although they're told by batches—
'Twas bulk of hull, and cut of sail,
That did for all our yatches.
But novelty, I hear them say,
Fresh novelty still hatches!
The Yankee yatch the keels will lay
Of many new club yatches.
And then we'll challenge Yankee land,
From Boston Bay to Natchez,
To run their crackest craft agin
Our spick-and-span new yatches.
Wit and Cruelty as Allies.
The Temptation to be Clever at Another's Expense is so Irresistible That
Whenever We Find a Modern Bon Mot We See a Victim
Picking Up Pieces of His Shattered Egotism.
It is almost a proverb that a witty person is also a cruel one. True wit does not need to be caustic; but it is so much easier to be clever at some one's expense than in any other way, that the person with a reputation to sustain for saying witty things will fall into the habit of sarcasm very readily if his heart is not particularly kind.