“Life is a hollow mockery. When shall my eyes open to the true Olympus, where real gods make their abode? I feel a strange unrest, and confess myself weary of the Tarsian deities.”
“Ah, my high and mighty Marcius! Thou art downcast to-night. Get rid of thyself,—that is, drive away thy thoughts.”
“My thoughts are too deep to be rooted out. They hold me in thraldom! Genius decays! Vice vanquishes virtue! How will it all end? What has the unseen future in store for us?”
“Leave the future! The gods serve us to-day as we serve them. To-day! to-day is all!
‘If hope is lost and freedom fled,
The more excuse for pleasure.’”
“By all the divinities of Rome! Nothing less than the oars of Charon himself will ever break thine ever[pg 64]lasting trail of poetry. But a truce to thy chatter! Let us to the Mysteries and inquire our respective fates!”
“Perchance they will brighten thy spirits and calm thy temper.”
Slowly rising, they made their way into the cella of the temple.
The perpetual fire was burning upon the great sacred hearth; and before it were a few persons who had prostrated themselves, each waiting the slow turn for their introduction to the inner Mysteries. The cella was unlighted save by the fitful glare of the fire on the hearth. The strange symbols and inscriptions which covered the walls and ceiling produced a weird and unearthly effect.