Marius the Epicurean by Walter Pater — Read

In cheerfulness is the success of our studies, says Pliny -- studia hilaritate proveniunt. It was still the habit of Marius, encouraged by his experience that sleep is not only a sedative but the best of stimulants, to seize the morning hours for creation, making profit when he might of the wholesome serenity which followed a dreamless night. "The morning for creation," he would say; "the afternoon for the perfecting labour of the file; the evening for reception -- the reception of matter from without one, of other men's words and thoughts -- matter for our own dreams, or the merely mechanic exercise of the brain, brooding thereon silently, in its dark chambers. " To leave home early in the day was therefore a rare thing for him. He was induced so to do on the occasion of a visit to Rome of the famous writer Lucian, whom he had been bidden to meet. The breakfast over, he walked away with the learned guest, having offered to be his guide to the lecture-room of a well-known Greek rhetorician and expositor of the Stoic philosophy, a teacher then much in fashion among the studious youth of Rome. On reaching the place, however, they found the doors closed, with a slip of writing attached, which proclaimed "a holiday"; and the morning being a fine one, they walked further, along the Appian Way. Mortality, with which the Queen of Ways -- in reality the favourite cemetery of Rome -- was so closely crowded, in every imaginable form of sepulchre, from the tiniest baby-house, to the massive monument out of which the Middle Age would adapt a fortress-tower, might seem, on a morning like this, to be "smiling through tears. " The flower-stalls just beyond the city gates presented to view an array of posies and garlands, fresh enough for a wedding. At one and another of them groups of persons, gravely clad, were making their bargains before starting for some perhaps distant spot on the highway, to keep a dies rosationis, this being the time of roses, at the grave of a deceased relation. Here and there, a funeral procession was slowly on its way, in weird contrast to the gaiety of the hour.

The two companions, of course, read the epitaphs as they strolled along. In one, reminding them of the poet's -- Si lacrimae prosunt, visis te ostende videri! -- a woman prayed that her lost husband might visit her dreams. Their characteristic note, indeed, was an imploring cry, still to be sought after by the living. "While I live," such was the promise of a lover to his dead mistress, "you will receive this homage: after my death -- who can tell? " -- post mortem nescio. "If ghosts, my sons, do feel anything after death, my sorrow will be lessened by your frequent coming to me here! " "This is a privileged tomb; to my family and descendants has been conceded the right of visiting this place as often as they please. " "This is an eternal habitation; here lie I; here I shall lie forever. " "Reader! if you doubt that the soul survives, make your oblation and a prayer for me; and you shall understand!"