orter period, but often, again,
the letters on the page shine with an uncanny light, and force the inward
eye to see them and to heed them.

On this particular night Hadrian felt himself compelled to read the
catalogue of his actions and among them he found many a sanguinary crime,
many a petty action unworthy of a far meaner soul than he; still the
record commemorated many duties strictly fulfilled, much honest work, an
unceasing struggle towards high aims, and an unwearied effort to feel his
way intellectually, to the most remote and exalted limits possible to the
human mind and comprehension.

In this hour Hadrian thought of none but his evil deeds, and vowed to the
gods--whom he mocked at with his philosophical friends, and to whom he
nevertheless addressed himself whenever he felt the insufficiency of his
own strength and means--to build a temple here, to offer a sacrifice
there, in order to expiate old crimes and divert their malice. He felt
like a great man must who is threatened with the disfavor of his
superiors, and who hopes to propitiate them with gifts. The haughty Roman
quailed at the thought of unknown dangers, but he was far from feeling
the wholesome pangs of repentance.

Hardly an hour since he had forgotten himself and had disgracefully
abused his power over a weaker creature, and now he was vexed at having
behaved so and not otherwise; but it never entered his head to humiliate
his pride or, by offering some compensation to the offended party,
tacitly to confess the injustice he had committed. Often he deeply felt
his human weakness, but he was quite capable of believing in the
sacredness of his imperial person, and this he always found most easy
when he had trodden under foot some one who had been rash enough to
insult him, or not to acknowledge his superiority. And was it not on the
contemners of the gods that their heaviest punishments fell?

To-day the terrestrial Jupiter had again crushed into the earth with his
thunderbolts, an overbold mortal, and this time the son of the worthy
gate-keeper was his victim. The sculptor certainly had been so unlucky as
to touch Hadrian in his most sensitive spot, but a cordially benevolent
feeling is not easily converted into a relentless opposition if we are
not ourselves--as was the case with the Emperor--accustomed to jump from
one mood to the other, are not conscious--as he was--of having it in our
power directly to express our good-will or our aversion