“Such Sulpicius, is not my meaning,” rejoined Marcus, “but only that one so competent to color nature as she should be colored, should perform the task, and who, if he but wave the gay wand of fancy, may bring before you every hill in its greenness, and temple in its sculptured whiteness, so that you might almost believe you saw them on the painter’s easel, or starting up in beautiful reality at your feet.”
“Stop Marcus, the subject of this undeserved eulogy is present, and if you say another word I shall hesitate whether to begin, since our friends may form expectations which cannot be realised.”
With this he described the whole course of our voyage, from our embarkation at Constantinople to our landing at Berytus, its perils and its pleasures: the countries we saw, the cities we visited, in that full and flowing style for which he is so celebrated. At one moment he would bring so faithfully to our eye, the terrors of that night on which we were so near engulphed, that the shudder of fancied danger shot through our veins, and the billows almost seemed to toss us, so vividly can a master’s hand summon up an image of those horrors one has but lately passed through. Indeed at one part of the recital, Fortunatus who was present, uttered a smothered cry to the sailors, as if he was again acting the part of a commander upon his ship. At this strange ejaculation, notwithstanding the exciting story, we could not repress our laughter; Lactantius himself joining in the general merriment. When he began to describe the different cities we had entered, he used considerable action, and so clearly did he bring the representation to our view that in pointing, as if to the real object, we instinctively followed with our eyes the motion of his fingers, as it were, in expectation that the rising walls of some palace, or the rich scenery of some wooded valley, would meet our gaze. Such is that silent homage which we unknowingly pay to eloquent genius.
When he had finished, some expression of pleasure or admiration burst from every tongue, and Sulpicius ordered us to fill our glasses to Lactantius, accompanying this token of friendship with other marks of high wrought satisfaction, such as he displays only on those occasions, when his feelings are strongly enlisted in the object of them.
“Lactantius,” he remarked, “having always at my elbow a ready scribe, who, committing to parchment with the most wonderful facility all that falls from the lips of those distinguished men from Rome, Constantinople, or other great cities, who in their travels may chance to honor me with a visit, I have been enabled to accumulate a rich collection, over which, whether as memorials of genius or of friendship, I linger, whenever I peruse them, with fresh delight. This day’s conversation, as it fell from your lips, is already deposited on the precious pile.”
Here I perceived an uneasy play upon the features of my friend; as I quickly traced the cause, for it was none other than his retiring diffidence, I felt anxious to change the topic of our conversation. The announcement of a stranger’s name, repeated, however, in so low a tone that I did not hear it, diverted the attention of the company. Entering, he walked toward the couch of Sulpicius, and we were all struck, at the first glance, with his commanding air and dignified deportment. An ample forehead, dark and piercing eye, and venerable beard, that sported with by a passing wind, carelessly floated about the graceful folds of his tunic, elicited instantaneous respect.
“I come,” he said, addressing himself to Sulpicius, “to seek the great Lactantius, and understanding he was present, took the liberty of entering without ceremony.” Sulpicius with this, rose, kindly welcomed and invited him to join us at the tables, but politely refusing, he continued,—“I come to consult him upon a subject which I hold to be entitled to the friendly countenance of every lover of generosity and toleration, be he of whatever faith.”
With this Lactantius arose and joined him, and as he clasped his hand, there seemed so much Christian sincerity in his manner, that a tear sparkled in the eye of the stranger, but it passed away, and his settled demeanor was resumed. When they had left, a hundred conjectures sprang up, as to what might be the object of this interview. But Sulpicius informed us he was an eminent citizen of Berytus, that he had held a responsible office under one of the last Emperors, embracing, however, the creed of that new sect called Christians, he fell into disgrace, and stood in jeopardy of his life, but was saved through the earnest intercession of an influential friend residing at Baalbec, and a solemn promise to retire into distant and perpetual banishment. Upon the death of the Emperor he returned from exile, and would have been re-instated in all his former dignities, but tiring of the turmoil of public life he preferred the quiet of retirement, and the peaceful enjoyment of domestic bliss. But you have not given us, observed Valerius, your conjecture of the object of his visit, nor the name of that worthy citizen whose intervention was so happy in its results. The object of the interview is doubtless to arouse the feelings, or invoke the powerful aid of Lactantius in the establishment of a Christian Colony, or perhaps in the building of some Christian temple, since Constantine has proved so munificent in the erection of the most gorgeous edifices to the Christian’s God. The name of the citizen whose good offices were so fortunate, was Æmelianus of Heliopolis. When this name was mentioned, I noticed that the countenance of Lucretia became pale, and her lip was compressed, as if in the suppression of some hidden emotion, but its cause I was not able to divine.
The sun upon the following day shining through the windows’ tapestry, awoke me by his reddening beams, and warned me to rise and behold the grandeur at my feet. Throwing the lattice open, I beheld a panorama unequalled in sublimity and beauty by any thing I had ever seen. Berytus stretched away below me, sparkling with shining domes, glistening house tops, and here and there arose some marble monumental pillar, or an obelisk, commemorative of some signal event, which, peeping from their encircling grove, appeared to rest upon its summit like flakes of freshly fallen snow. Beyond the city lay the ocean, with many a sail, but dimly visible upon its heaving bosom; behind me rose, towering and precipitous, eternal Lebanon, bathed in a flood of various lights, like a vestment dyed with many colors, and the pines which crown its heights, spreading their fringy leaves against the clouds, borrowed all their hues.
With nature clothed in gladness, and the scented freshness of the morning air, filled with the warbling of birds, you may entertain surprise when I tell you, that my feelings were those of sadness, for I reflected that this great city must, in its turn, as other cities have, either sink into insignificance, or become much diminished in splendor, and its thousands of busy people, with the unerring certainty of the rising sun, be gathered generation after generation, to their fathers, while the hoary mountain at whose base it lay, would through all time raise its head in haughty glory. How vain to boast of immortality, how vain to live solely for ambition’s sake, when the fame of the hero rests upon the mercy of a parchment, or the treacherous reliance of tradition. A convulsion of the earth may overthrow a temple, the pride of centuries, the boast of a nation—a spark consume a city, and time’s wasting finger in the interval of but a few years, destroy the golden record of genius, however perpetuated, so that the celebrity of the orator, and the works of the poet, shall have but a flickering existence, and finally shall perish from the recollection of their countrymen.