20
"But success (I call gods and men to witness!) is in our own hands. Our years are fresh, our spirit is unbroken; among our oppressors, on the contrary, through age and wealth a general debility has been produced. We have therefore only to make a beginning; the course of eventsThe course of events, etc.] Cætera res expediet.—" Of. Cic. Ep. Div. xiii. 26: explicare et expedire negotia." Gerlach. will accomplish the rest.
20
"Who in the world, indeed, that has the feelings of a man, can endure that they should have a superfluity of riches, to squander in building over seasBuilding over seas] See c. 13. and leveling mountains, and that means should be wanting to us even for the necessaries of life; that they should join together two houses or more, and and that we should not have a hearth to call our own ? They, though they purchase pictures, statues, and embossed plate ;Embossed plate] Toreumata. The same as vasa cælata, sculptured vases, c. 11. Vessels ornamented in bas-relief; from τορεύειν, scuolere; see Bentley ad Hor. A. P., 441. "Perbona toreumata, in his pocula duo," etc. Cic. in Verr. iv. 18. though they pull down new buildings and erect others, and lavish and abuse their wealth in every possible method, yet can not, with the utmost efforts of caprice, exhaust it. But for us there is poverty at home, debts abroad; our present circumstances are bad, our prospects much worse; and what, in a word, have we left, but a miserable existence ?