Send it, mother, to me there
Where you hear the trumpet’s blare.
Where the banners droop o’erhead,
There shall I be lying dead,
Stricken by the musket’s lead,
Seamed by gashes rosy red,
Trampled by the charger’s tread.”
Something of the spirit of the ancient Spartans lies in the Roumanian’s idea of virtue and vice. Stealing and drunkenness are not considered to be intrinsically wrong, only the publicity which may attend these proceedings conveying any sense of shame to the offender. Thus a man is not yet a thief because he has stolen; and whoever becomes accidentally aware of the theft should, if he have no personal interest in the matter, hold his peace, on the Shakespearian principle that
“He that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him,