54 
A GIRA THROUGH SICILY. 
It was civilization, all this. "We know it, because we see 
the broken statuary and the ruins of palaces and war-battered 
castles that tell us of their deeds; and we are told that such 
things could not be done in the present benighted state of art 
and architectural knowledge. There was Homer, and Yirgil, 
too, to sing the glories of war; and there was Thucydides 
and a thousand others to make killing mighty in the world’s 
history; and even the mist of centuries has not obscured the 
deeds therein described. And those heroes are still worshiped. 
The precious years of youth are spent in the study of these 
dark histories; thousands who scarce can write their mother 
tongue are taught to chant the glories of war in the dead 
languages, that they may be versed in the bloody lore of 
classic times. Oh, wondrous people ! Oh, mighty kings and 
chieftains ! Listen to a few plain facts. I am going to ad¬ 
dress you solemnly in your tombs, and post you up concerning 
the nineteenth century. Tourists have so long sung your 
praises that I mean to make a martyr of myself by telling 
you the truth. 
It is quite true, as enthusiastic travelers say, that your 
temples, and castles, and palaces are splendid specimens of 
architecture; that your baths are on the grandest scale; that 
your statuary is wonderfully beautiful; that you lived in a 
style of magnificence unknown to the people of the present 
day, except through your poets and historians; that all the 
relics of antiquity you have left us bear evidence of great 
power and extraordinary skill. But you were a barbarous peo¬ 
ple at best. The very splendor of your works is an evidence 
of your barbarism. "What oceans of money you spent on palaces, 
and tombs, and mausoleums ! What an amount of human 
labor you lavished in doing nothing ! If the Pyramids of Egypt 
were ten miles high instead of a few hundred feet, would 
the world be any the better for it—would the mass of man¬ 
kind be more enlightened, or more virtuous, or more happy ? 
If the Coliseum at Home had accommodated fifty millions 
of people instead of fifty thousand, would it have taught them 
the blessings of peace and good government, or disseminated 
useful knowledge among them? If all your palaces were 
