This statue was from the hand of the Greek sculptor Strongylion,
who also carved that figure of an Amazon known as the Beautiful Leg,
Eucnemos, which Nero carried with him in his travels. This Strongylion
left but two statues which placed Nero and Brutus in accord. Brutus was
in love with the one, Nero with the other. All history is nothing but
wearisome repetition. One century is the plagiarist of the other. The
battle of Marengo copies the battle of Pydna; the Tolbiac of Clovis and
the Austerlitz of Napoleon are as like each other as two drops of water.
I don't attach much importance to victory. Nothing is so stupid as to
conquer; true glory lies in convincing. But try to prove something! If
you are content with success, what mediocrity, and with conquering, what
wretchedness! Alas, vanity and cowardice everywhere. Everything obeys
success, even grammar. Si volet usus, says Horace. Therefore I disdain
the human race. Shall we descend to the party at all? Do you wish me
to begin admiring the peoples? What people, if you please? Shall it be
Greece? The Athenians, those Parisians of days gone by, slew Phocion,
as we might say Coligny, and fawned upon tyrants to such an extent that
Anacephorus said of Pisistratus: "His urine attracts the bees." The most
prominent man in Greece for fifty years was that grammarian Philetas,
who was so small and so thin that he was obliged to load his shoes with
lead in order not to be blown away by the wind. There stood on the great
square in Corinth a statue carved by Silanion and catalogued by Pliny;
this statue represented Episthates. What did Episthates do? He invented
a trip. That sums up Greece and glory. Let us pass on to others. Shall I
admire England? Shall I admire France? France? Why? Because of Paris?
I have just told you my opinion of Athens. England? Why? Because of
London? I hate Carthage. And then, London, the metropolis of luxury, is
the headquarters of wretchedness. There are a hundred deaths a year of
hunger in the parish of Charing-Cross alone. Such is Albion. I add,
as the climax, that I have seen an Englishwoman dancing in a wreath of
roses and blue spectacles. A fig then for England! If I do not admire
John Bull, shall I admire Brother Jonathan? I have but little taste for
that slave-holding brother. Take away Time is money, what remains of
England? Take away Cotton is king, what remains of America? Germany is
the lymph, Italy is the bile. Shall we go into ecstasies over