Page:Blanchard on L. E. L.pdf/18

18 shock the rapt and romantic, if, being believers in fiction, they were not often incredulous as to fact—the amusements, in short, of donkey-riding and racing, resorted to daily—of trap-ball, hoop, and bow-and-arrow, practised continually—even to the acquisition of an extraordinary degree of expertness, especially in the latter art. No; what we would particularise as the favourite pastime of the children, what may be characterised as their first ambition, was "to be Spartans." Mr. Landon says, "There could be no greater reproach between us than to call each other 'Sybarite,' and this long before I knew why; as far (he adds) as Plutarch's Lives enabled her to comprehend Spartan maxims, she aimed at carrying them out—thieving alone excepted—and that, as her father told her, only because we were not in an enemy's country." And it is related by her cousin, that she would often give any dainty she was about to eat to some poor child who came to the gate, observing, as she turned away, "I would rather be a Spartan than a Sybarite." One of the exploits of the young Spartans deserves, by way of specimen, to be recorded. For some wanton or heedless trespass, they had both one day been turned out of the garden. Their rage was so great that they hardly knew at first how to compass their revenge upon the gardener. "But, my sister," proceeds our authority on this grave matter, "proposed a rather curious method of taking vengeance. 'I tell you what—we'll make him a public character!' but as I did not know what that was, I thought it better to get our war-arrows (headed with nails instead of lead), and attack him on the spot. She was too much of a Spartan not at once to assent to the plan, and in another minute or two poor Joseph was stuck all over with arrows, for