"Nay, not that—but I should like to be permitted to live for ever with a few chosen friends."
"And should I be one of them?"
"Yes—indeed," cried Antinous warmly and pressing his lips to Hadrian's hand.
"I was sure of it—but even with the promise of never being obliged to part with you my darling, I would never sacrifice the only privilege which man enjoys above the immortals."
"What privilege can you mean?"
"The right of withdrawing from the ranks of the living as soon as annihilation seems more endurable than existence and I choose to call death to release me."
"The gods, it is true, cannot die."
"And the Christians only to link a new life on to death."
"But a fairer and a happier than this on earth." They say it is a life of bliss. But the mother of this everlasting life is the ineradicable love of existence in even the most wretched of our race, and hope is its father. They believe in a complete freedom from suffering in that other world because He whom they call their Redeemer, the crucified Christ, has saved them from all sufferings by His death."
"And can a man take upon him the sufferings of others, think you, like a garment or a burden?"