"Very. So the world says. I have come to perceive, Rupert, that that don't mean much."
"Why not? I thought the world was apt to be right."
"In some things. No doubt this man might have been a very great man; he had power; but what good did he do to the world? He just worked for himself. I tell you what the Bible says, Rupert; 'The things which are highly esteemed among men, are abomination in the sight of God.' Look, and you will see it is so."
"If you go by that—— Who is this next man? Augustus. He was the first Roman emperor, wasn't he?"
"And all around here are ranged his successors. What a set they were! and they look like it."
"How do you know they are likenesses?"
"Know from coins. Do you know, almost all these men, the emperors, died a violent death? Murdered, or else they killed themselves. That speaks, don't it, for the beauty and beneficence of their reigns, and the loveliness of their characters?"
"I don't know them very well. Some of them were good men, weren't they?"
"See here, Nos. 11 and 12. Here are Caligula and Claudius. Caligula was murdered. Then Claudius was poisoned by his wife Agrippina; there she is, No. 14. She was killed by her son Nero; and Nero killed himself; and No. 13, there is another wife of Claudius whom he killed before he married Agrippina; and here, No. 17, was a wife of Nero whom he killed by a kick. And that is the way, my dear Rupert, they went on. Don't you wish you had belonged to the Imperial family? There's greatness for you!"
"But there were some really great ones, weren't there? Which are they?"