An honest man dares challenge ’gainst the world,”—
it must have been a brutish breast in which his words did not start generous and ennobling echoes. Tell says,—
“Ha! behold in air
Where a majestic eagle floats above
The northern turrets of the citadel,
And as the sun breaks through yon rifted cloud
His plumage shines, embathed in burning gold,
And sets off his regality in heaven!”
To have such a picture painted in speech and action so vividly that the hearers are transported out of themselves and tremble with pleasure is an educational influence of a pure and lofty order. The victorious Spartacus soliloquizes,—
“A cloud is on my path, but my ambition