Tuesday, October 22, 2024
What a People!
Walter Scott, Guy Mannering, Vol. II, Chap. 1:
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"And this then is the Roman Wall," said he, scrambling up to a height which commanded the course of that celebrated work of antiquity: "What a people! whose labours, even at this extremity of their empire, comprehended such space, and were executed upon such a scale of grandeur! In future ages, when the science of war shall have changed, how few traces will exist of the labours of Vauban and Coehorn, while this wonderful people's remains will even then continue to interest and astonish posterity! Their fortifications, their aqueducts, their theatres, their fountains, all their public works, bear the grave, solid, and majestic character of their language; and our modern labours, like our modern tongues, seem but constructed out of their fragments."
