From the earliest period of reflection have I detested the Roman character; and all that I have witnessed with my own eyes has served but to confirm those early impressions. They are a people wholly destitute of humanity. They are the lineal descendants of robbers, murderers, and warriors--which last are but murderers under another name--and they show their parentage in every line of their hard-featured visages, and still more in all the qualities of the soul. They are stern,--unyielding, unforgiving--cruel. A Roman heart dissected would be found all stone. Any present purpose of passion, or ambition, or party zeal, will extinguish in the Roman all that separates him from the brute. Bear witness to the truth of this, ye massacres of Marius and Sylla! and others, more than can be named, both before and since--when the blood of neighbors, friends, and fellow-citizens, was poured out as freely as if it had been the filthy stream that leaks its way through the public sewers! And, in good sooth, was it not as filthy? For those very ones so slain, had the turn of the wheel--as in very deed has often happened--set them uppermost, would have done the same deed upon the others. Happy is it for the peace of the earth and the great cause of humanity, that this faith of Christ, whether it be true or false, is at length beginning to bear sway, and doing somewhat to soften, what more than twelve centuries have passed over and left in its original vileness. When, like the rest of that Roman mob, I had been filled with the sights and sounds of the morning, I turned and sought the palace of Piso. Arriving there I found Portia, Julia, and Piso sitting together at the hour of dinner. I sat with them. Piso had not left the palace, since I had parted from him. They had remained at peace within, and as ignorant of what had happened in the distant parts of the huge capital, as we all were of what was then doing in another planet. When, as the meal drew to a close, I had related to them the occurrences of which I had just been the witness, they could scarce believe what they heard, though it was but what they and all had every reason to look for, from the language which Aurelian had used, and the known hostility of the Prefect. Portia, the mother, was moved more, if it could be so, than even Piso or Julia. When I had ended, she said,