These stealthy canker worms, which under the shadow of night, mist and duplicity, insinuated themselves into the company of every individual, and proceeded to drain him of all seriousness for real things, of all his instinct for realities; this cowardly, effeminate and sugary gang have step by step alienated all souls from this colossal edifice, those valuable, virile and noble natures who felt that the cause of Rome was their own personal cause, their own personal seriousness, their own personal pride.