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Boulder Place Directory 09
Page 10
An Aurochs in blind rage, charging through thick and thin, has had a fascination for me as long as I can remember. The true aurochs and this, the European Bison, ceased to exist in the British Isles, except in the Zoological Gardens; but the latter is still found wild in Lithuania, and is also carefully preserved in other parts of Russia, of which the Emperor has a herd. There is much talk about their being untamable--that they will not mix with tame cattle--that tame cows shrink from the aurochs' calves; but does not any cow shrink from any calf not her own? The American Bison, with which you are all pretty familiar, is very similar to the one just mentioned. There have been several attempts made to domesticate the American bison, and have been so far successful. The size and strength of the animal make it probable that if domesticated, it would be of great use.
Those that have joined with their honor great travels, cares, or perils, are less subject to envy. For men think that they earn their honors hardly, and pity them sometimes; and pity ever healeth envy. Wherefore you shall observe, that the more deep and sober sort of politic persons, in their greataess, are ever bemoaning themselves, what a life they lead; chanting a quanta patimur! Not that they feel it so, but only to abate the edge of envy. But this is to be understood, of business that is laid upon men, and not such, as they call unto themselves. For nothing increaseth envy more, than an unnecessary and ambitious engrossing of business. And nothing doth extinguish envy more, than for a great person to preserve all other inferior officers, in their full lights and pre-eminences of their places. For by that means, there be so many screens between him and envy.
The night passed on, and though the king's mind was relieved, he suffered much bodily agony. In the morning, when he perceived that it was light, he asked the attendants to open the curtains, that he might see the sun for the last time. It gave him but a momentary pleasure, for he was restless and in great suffering. Some pains which he endured increased so much that it was decided to bleed him. The operation relieved the suffering, but exhausted the sufferer's strength so that he soon lost the power of speech, and lay afterward helpless and almost insensible, longing for the relief which now nothing but death could bring him. This continued till about noon, when he ceased to breathe.
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