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Untitled Article
quails before the patrician frown , aad the lip of Marcius curls in scorn * Had he been a man he would have honoured him , and his bearing would have been as frank to him as it was to
Menenius . Look , reader , look , mark the withering scorn with which he speaks to those who know not how to respect themselves . His voice is not elevated , but it rings through the plebeian ears and startles them from their self-possession . They are many , but he fears them not , and the triumph of mind over matter is perfect ;
* What is the matter you dissentious rogues , That rubbing the poor itch of your opinion , Make yourself scabs V Oh ! Marcius , Marcius , had you been a philosopher , you had been perfect . You would then have pitied the poor people , and would have known that their vices are the result of their physical
misery , instead of believing that their physical misery is the result of their vices . Had they endured less misery , they would have possessed more courage . How poor ' great toe' shrinks and shivers , and hangs down his head , and turns away his eyes ! He looks as though he were a fuller and tunic scourer by trade ; he has not had time to scour his own , but it is said the shoemaker ' s
wife is always worst shod : his face looks white as though it were plastered with his own earth . Courage , man , courage , and speak boldly for your < order ! ' No , he cannot , the eye of Marcius has stricken him down , and he can only whine out , We have ever your good word /
Fierce indignation now flashes on the severe and haughty face of Marcius . He feels the injustice which is done him , the unworthy suspicions which are cast on his noble nature . He would not harm a single individual , plebeian or patrician ; he has would not harm a single individual , plebeian or p atrician ; he has
fought for Rome and would fight for her again , and his scorn of the imputation cast on him , blinds him to all further thought , save how to give vent to his measureless indignation . Yet still his voice is not violent , but deep , bitter , and scornful . He does not reflect on the miserable condition of those whom he looks
down upon , but in the agony of wounded honour , seeks to writhe them to the quick by the mere power of words , in perfect confidence that nothing , more i » required to quell them . His own nobleness of nature jiot having been crushed by circumstances ,
he can make no allowan . ee for those who have been differently situated . He does not scorn them because they are plebeians , but because they are base plebeians ; forgetting that their baseness is the result of their ignorance , which , so far from permitting them to know their own minds , leaves them no minds to know . He
scorns them , because they are base men , and had they been base patricians , ho would have scorned them still more , the ' rash humours which his mother gave him / having led him to regard bareness as a quality more peculiarly belonging to plebeians .
Untitled Article
Coriolanui no Aristocrat 47
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1834, page 47, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2629/page/49/
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