A MAN MUST LIVE CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN A man must live. We justify To a whole senate bought and sold, But is it so? Pray tell me why There are times when a man must die. From soldiers, with a sword to hold,- A man must live! STUDY. What result would likely follow if the world should adopt as its motto, "A man must live"? What questions about its truth are raised? And what answer is found in stanza 2? Why is it not a fit battle cry? Do you agree in calling it what the poet does in line 14? (A number of selections in this reader have dealt with this fine spirit of loyalty to principle at whatever cost; recall some of them, and compare with this poem.) THE EXTRAVAGANCE OF LUCULLUS PLUTARCH 10 15 Lucullus's life, like the Old Comedy, presents us at the commencement with acts of policy and of war, at the end offering nothing but good eating and drinking, feastings and revelings, and mere play. For I give no higher name to his sumptuous buildings, porticoes, and baths, still less to his paintings and sculptures, and 5 all his industry about these curiosities, which he collected with vast expense, lavishly bestowing all the wealth and treasure which he got in the war upon them, insomuch that even now, with all the advance of luxury, the Lucullean gardens are counted the 10 noblest the emperor has. Tubero, the stoic, when he saw his buildings at Naples, where he suspended the hills upon vast tunnels, brought in the sea for moats and fishponds round his house, and built pleasure houses in the waters, called him Xerxes in a gown. He had also fine seats in 15 Tusculum, belvederes, and large open balconies for men's apartments, and porticoes to walk in, where Pompey coming to see him, blamed him for making a house which would be pleasant in summer but uninhabitable in winter; whom he answered with a smile: "You think me, then, less provident than cranes and storks, 20 not to change my home with the season." When a prætor, with great expense and pains, was preparing a spectacle for the people, and asked him to lend him some purple robes for the performers in a chorus, he told him he would go home and see, and if he had any, would let him take them; and the next 25 day asking how many he wanted, and being told that a hundred would suffice, bade him take twice as many: on which the poet Horace observes, that a house is indeed a poor one, where the valuables unseen and unthought of do not exceed all those that meet the eye. 30 Lucullus's daily entertainments were ostentatiously extravagant, not only in purple coverlets, and plate adorned with precious stones, and dancings, and interludes, but with the greatest diversity of dishes and the most elaborate cookery, for the vulgar to admire and envy. It was a happy thought of Pompey in his sickness, 35 when his physician prescribed a thrush for his dinner, and his servants told him that in summer time thrushes were not to be found anywhere but in Lucullus's fattening coops, that he would not suffer them to fetch one thence, but observed to his physician, "So if Lucullus had not been an epicure, Pompey had not lived," 40 and ordered something else that could easily be got to be prepared for him. Cato was his friend and connection, but, nevertheless, so hated. his life and habits, that when a young man in the senate made a long and tedious speech in praise of frugality and temperance, Cato 45 got up and said: "How long do you mean to go on making money like Crassus, living like Lucullus, and talking like Cato?" It is plain from the anecdotes on record of him, that Lucullus was not only pleased with, but even gloried in his way of living. 50 For he is said to have feasted several Greeks upon their coming to Rome day after day, who, out of a true Grecian principle, being ashamed, and declining the invitation, where so great an expense was every day incurred for them, he with a smile said to them: "Some of this, indeed, my Grecian friends, is for your sakes, 55 but more for that of Lucullus." Once when he supped alone, there being only one course, and that but moderately furnished, he called his steward and reproved him, who, professing to have supposed that there would be no need of any great entertainment, when nobody was invited, was 60 answered: “What, did not you know, then, that to-day Lucullus was to dine with Lucullus?" This being much spoken of about the city, Cicero and Pompey one day met him loitering in the Forum, the former his intimate 65 friend and familiar, and, though there had been some ill will between Pompey and him about the command in the war, still they used to see each other and converse on easy terms together. Cicero accordingly saluted him, and asked him whether to-day was a good time for asking a favor of him, and on his answering, 70 “Very much so," and begging to hear what it was, Cicero said, "Then we should like to dine with you to-day, just on the dinner that is prepared for yourself." Lucullus being surprised, and requesting a day's time, they refused to grant it, and would not allow him to talk with his 75 servants, for fear he should give orders for more than was appointed before. But this they consented to, that before their faces he might tell his servant that to-day he would sup in "the Apollo" (for so one of his best dining rooms was called), and by this evasion he outwitted his guests. For every room, as it seems, had its own assessment of expenditure, dinner at such a price, and all else in 80 accordance; so that the servants, on knowing where he would dine, knew also how much was to be expended, and in what style and form dinner was to be served. The expense for the Apollo was fifty thousand drachmas, and such a sum being that day laid out, the greatness of the cost did not so much amaze Pompey and 85 Cicero, as the rapidity of the outlay. One might believe that Lucullus thought his money really captive and barbarian, so wantonly and contumeliously did he treat it. GLOSSARY. Lucullus; Tubero; stoic; Naples; Xerxes; Tusculum; belvederes; Pompey; Horace; ostentatiously; epicure; Cato; Crassus; Cicero; Forum; drachma; contumeliously. STUDY. This passage gives a fine account of one phase of ancient “high life." What is Plutarch's opinion of Lucullus as suggested in the first paragraph? What did Tubero mean by calling him "Xerxes in a gown”? What other opinions of great Romans are referred to in the course of the passage? Notice all the hints and illustrations that enable you to gather a clear idea of the manner in which Lucullus lived. What was his own attitude toward all this magnificence and extravagance? THESEUS CHARLES KINGSLEY I. HOW THESEUS LIFTED THE STONE Once upon a time there was a princess in Trozen, Æthra, the daughter of Pittheus the king. She had one fair son, named Theseus, the bravest lad in all the land; and Ethra never smiled but when she looked at him, for her husband had forgotten her, and lived far away. And she used to go up to the mountain 5 above Trozen, to the temple of Poseidon, and sit there all day looking out across the bay, over Methana, to the purple peaks of Ægina, and the Attic shore beyond. And when Theseus was full fifteen years old, she took him up with her to the temple, and |
