two extremities of exalted and forlorn humanity, its vanward and its rearward

man, a Roman consul and an abject slave. But their natural relations to each

other were, by the caprice of fortune, monstrously inverted: the consul was in

chains; the slave was for a moment the arbiter of his fate. By what spells, what

magic, did Marius reinstate himself in his natural prerogatives? By what marvels

drawn from heaven or from earth, did he, in the twinkling of an eye, again

invest himself with the purple, and place between himself and his assassin a

host of shadowy lictors? By the mere blank supremacy of great minds over weak

ones. He _fascinated_ the slave, as a rattlesnake does a bird. Standing "like

Teneriffe," he smote him with his eye, and said, "_Tune, homo, audes occidere C.

Marium?_"--"Dost thou, fellow, presume to kill Caius Marius?" Whereat, the

reptile, quaking under the voice, nor daring to affront the consular eye, sank

gently to the ground--turned round upon his hands and feet--and, crawling out of

the prison like any other vermin, left Marius standing in solitude as steadfast

and immovable as the capitol.

 

--THOMAS DE QUINCY.

 

Here is a similar example, prefaced by a general historical statement and

concluding with autobiographical details:

 

_A REMINISCENCE OF LEXINGTON_

 

One raw morning in spring--it will be eighty years the 19th day of this

month--Hancock and Adams, the Moses and Aaron of that Great Deliverance, were