In vain the anguished
father asserted that Virginia was his child. With an air of apparent
impartiality, Appius decreed that she belonged to Claudius, who
thereupon proceeded to remove her. The father begged that they might at
least be allowed to take leave of each other, which request was granted,
on condition of their doing so in the presence of the oppressor. Drawing
the girl, now nearly dead from fright, toward himself, and also toward
the shambles, adjoining which they were, he snatched thence a knife,
and, before any suspected his intention, stabbed her to the heart,
crying, "This alone can preserve your honor and your freedom."[E]
The fearful deed of the centurion is appalling; but remember his ideas
of right and wrong were veiled in pagan darkness. He took the life of
his child to save her from a fate incomparably worse than that of death;
and made his name historic by doing so. Thousands of fathers have found
their efforts to protect the innocence of their daughters as unavailing
as did the unhappy Virginius, unless, like him, they shortened life. The
victims, too, are as little free-will agents in the matter as Virginia
would have been; and many thousands of daughters have fallen, not by
their father's hand to save their honor, but by cruel deception, and
died to all that was beautiful or pure on earth, and to every hope of
heaven.
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