The Light Bearer

Better a spirit that does not quite fit in this world than one that is broken.

How quick, brutal, and fragile is life. You are born, you live a few years in wild hope, then you are dragged back into the night. You might have breathed on a little longer, had you not dared think yourself a human creature instead of an engine of muscle and bone.

Books are worse than wine, I say. You read one and you need another - there's no end to it. What ails you that you cannot content yourself with just living on under the sun?

For too many generations of the common people of Rome were allowed no hand in governing, and their state religion had long since mummified into dry rituals that never touched ordinary passions. It was inevitable, proclaimed the dour scholars of the philosophical schools, that the Colosseum would become their chief temple and the fortunes of gladiators would be watched more closely than the rise and fall of nations.

Her spirit rose with the horns and she was seized suddenly with a fierce love of all this country. She felt her mind a great wing stretched out protectively over the land.