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For I know not whether he will have any regard for us, since he has had none for his country, which he used to prefer to his mother, to his wife, and children. Take us, however, and make what use of us you please. Lead us to him. If we can do nothing else, we can expire at his feet in supplicating for Rome."

She then took the children and Virgilia with her, and went with the other matrons to the Volscian camp. The sight of them produced, even in the enemy, compassion and a reverential silence. Coriolanus, who then happened to be seated upon the tribunal with his principal officers, seeing the women approach, was greatly agitated and surprised. Nevertheless, he endeavored to retain his wonted sternness and inexorable temper, though he perceived that his wife was at the head of them. But, unable to resist the emotions of affection, he could not suffer them to address him as he sat. He descended from the tribunal and ran to meet them. First he embraced his mother for a considerable time, and afterwards his wife and children, neither refraining from tears nor any other instance of natural tenderness.

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When he had sufficiently indulged his passion, and perceived that his mother wanted to speak, he called the Volscian counselors to him, and Volumnia expressed herself to this purpose: You see, my son, by our attire and miserable looks, and therefore I may spare myself the trouble of declaring, to what condition your banishment has reduced us. Think with yourself whether we are not the most unhappy of women, when fortune has changed the spectacle that

should have been the most pleasing in the world, into the most dreadful; when Volumnia beholds her son, and Virgilia her husband, encamped in a hostile manner before the walls of his native city. And what to others is the greatest consolation under misfortune and adversity, I mean prayer to the gods, to us is rendered impracticable: for we cannot at the same time beg victory for our country and your preservation, but what our worst enemies would imprecate on us a curse, must of necessity be interwoven with our prayers. Your wife and children must either see their country perish, or you. As to my own part, I will not live to see this war decided by fortune. If I cannot persuade you to prefer friendship and union, to enmity and its ruinous consequences, and so to become the benefactor to both sides, rather than the destruction of one, you must take this along with you, and prepare to expect it, that you shall not advance against your country, without trampling upon the dead body of her that bore you. For it does not become me to wait for that day, when my son shall be either led captive by his fellow-citizens, or triumph over Rome. If, indeed, I desired you to save your country by ruining the Volscians I confess the case would be hard, and the choice difficult: for it would neither be honorable to destroy your countrymen, nor just to betray those who have placed their confidence in you. But what do we desire of you, more than deliverance from our own calamities? A deliverance which will be equally salutary to both parties, but most to the honor of the Volscians, since it will appear that their superiority

empowered them to grant us the greatest of blessings, peace and friendship, while they themselves receive the same. If these take place, you will be acknowledged to be the principal cause of them: if they do not, you alone must expect to bear the blame from both nations. And though the chance of war is uncertain, yet it will be the certain event of this, that if you conquer, you will be a destroying demon to your country: if you are beaten, it will be clear that, by indulging your resentment, you have plunged your friends and benefactors in the greatest of misfortunes."

Coriolanus listened to his mother while she went on with her speech, without saying the least word to her: and Volumnia, seeing him stand a long time mute after she had left speaking, proceeded again in this manner: "Why are you silent, my son? Is it an honor to yield everything to anger and resentment, and would it be a disgrace to yield to your mother in so important a petition? Or does it become a great man to remember the injuries done him, and would it not equally become a great and good man, with the highest regard and reverence, to keep in mind the benefits he has received from his parents? Surely you of all men, should take care to be grateful, who have suffered so extremely by ingratitude. And yet, though you have already severely punished your country, you have not made your mother the least return for her kindness. The most sacred ties both of nature and religion, without other constraint, require that you should indulge me in this just and reasonable request: but if words

cannot prevail, this only resource is left." When she had said this, she threw herself at his feet, together with his wife and children: upon which Coriolanus crying out, "O mother! what is it you have done?” raised her from the ground, and tenderly pressing her hand, continued, "You have gained a victory fortunate for your country, but ruinous to me. I go, vanquished by you alone." Then, after a short conference with his mother and wife in private, he sent them back to Rome, agreeably to their desire. Next morning he drew off the Volscians, who had not all the same sentiments of what had passed. Some blamed him, others, whose inclinations were for peace, found no fault: others again, though they disliked what was done, did not look upon Coriolanus as a bad man, but thought he was excusable in yielding to such powerful solicitations. However, none presumed to contradict his orders, though they followed him rather out of veneration for his virtue, than regard to his authority.

MY IDEA OF MY MOTHER

BY COUNT TOLSTOY

"My mother I do not at all remember. I was a year and a half old when she died. Owing to some strange chance no portrait of her has been preserved, so that, as a real physical being, I cannot represent her to myself. I am in a sense glad of this, for in my conception of her there is only her spiritual figure, and all that I know about her is beautiful, and I think

this is so, not only because all who spoke to me of my mother tried to say only what was good, but because there was actually very much of this good in her.

"My mother was not handsome. She was well educated for her time. Besides Russian, which, contrary to the national illiterateness then current, she wrote correctly, she knew four other languages, French, German, English, and Italian, and was probably sensitive to art. She played well on the piano, and her friends have told me that she was a great hand at narrating most attractive tales invented at the

moment.

"I have preserved several of her letters to my father and aunts, and her diary concerning the conduct of Nikolenka (my eldest brother) who was six years old when she died, and I think resembled her more than the rest of us. They both possessed a feature very dear to me, which I infer from my mother's letters, but personally witnessed in my brother: their indifference to the opinion of others, and their modesty in their endeavors to conceal those mental, educational, and moral advantages which they had in comparison with others. They were, as it were, ashamed of these advantages.

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'I remark the same feature in my mother's letters. She evidently stood on a higher level than my father and his family, with the exception, perhaps, of Tatiana Yergolsky, with whom I passed half my life, and who was a woman remarkable for her moral qualities.

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