leager was said to figure on the walls, there was a door on which was
a sign, imitated from one that overhung the Theban library of
Osymandias--Pharmacy of the Soul. It was there Tiberius dreamed.

On the ivory shelves were the philtres of Parthenius, labelled De
Amatoriis Affectionibus, the Sybaris of Clitonymus, the Erotopaegnia of
Laevius, the maxims and instructions of Elephantis, the nine books of
Sappho. There also were the pathetic adventures of Odatis and
Zariadres, which Chares of Mitylene had given to the world; the
astonishing tales of that early Cinderella, Rhodopis; and with them
those romances of Ionian nights by Aristides of Milet, which Crassus
took with him when he set out to subdue the Parthians, and which; found
in the booty, were read aloud to the people that they might judge the
morals of a nation that pretended to rule the world.

Whether such medicaments are serviceable to the soul is problematic.
Tiberius had other drugs on the ivory shelves--magic preparations that
transported him to fabulous fields. There was a work by Hecataesus,
with which he could visit Hyperborea, that land where happiness was a
birthright, inalienable at that; yet a happiness so sweet that it must
have been cloying; for the people who enjoyed it, and with it the
appanage of limitless life, killed themselves from sheer ennui.
Theopompus disclosed to him a stranger vista--a continent beyond the
ocean--one where there were immense cities, and where two rivers
flowed--the River of Pleasure and the River of Pain. With Iambulus he
discovered the Fortunate Isles, where there were men with elastic
bones, bifurcated tongues; men who never married, who worshipped the
sun, whose life was an uninterrupted delight, and who, when overtaken
by age, lay on a perfumed grass that produced a voluptuous death.
Evhemerus, a terrible atheist, whose Sacred History the early bishops
wielded against polytheism until they discovered it was double-edged,
took him to Panchaia, an island where incense grew; where property was
held in common; where there was but one law--Justice, yet a justice
different from our own, one which Hugo must have intercepted when he
made an entrancing yet enigmatical apparition exclaim:

"Tu me crois la Justice, je suis la Pitie."

And in this paradise there was a temple, and before it a column, about
which, in Panchaian characters, ran a history of ancient kings, who, to
the astonishment of the tourist, were found t