enial as a means towards its attainment. It is Pater's clear sight
of the necessity of these two facts, and his lifelong attempt to
reconcile them, that give him, from the ethical and religious point of
view, his greatest importance.

The story of this reconciliation is _Marius the Epicurean_. It is a
spiritual biography telling the inner history of a Roman youth of the
time of Marcus Aurelius. It begins with an appreciative interpretation
of the old Roman religion as it was then, and depicts the family
celebrations by which the devout were wont to seek "to produce an
agreement with the gods." Among the various and beautiful tableaux of
that Roman life, we see the solemn thoughtful boy reading hard and
becoming a precocious idealist, too old already for his years, but
relieving the inward tension by much pleasure in the country and the
open air. A time of delicate health brings him and us to a temple of
AEsculapius. The priesthood there is a kind of hospital college
brotherhood, whose teaching and way of life inculcate a mysteriously
sacramental character in all matters of health and the body.

Like all other vital youths, Marius must eat of the tree of knowledge
and become a questioner of hitherto accepted views. "The tyrannous
reality of things visible," and all the eager desire and delight of
youth, make their strong appeal. Two influences favour the temptation.
First there is his friend, Flavian the Epicurean, of the school that
delights in pleasure without afterthought, and is free from the burden
and restraint of conscience; and later on, _The Golden Book_ of
Apuleius, with its exquisite story of Cupid and Psyche, and its search
for perfectness in the frankly material life. The moral of its main
story is that the soul must not look upon the face of its love, nor seek
to analyse too closely the elements from which it springs. Spirituality
will be left desolate if it breaks this ban, and its wiser course is to
enjoy without speculation. Thus we see the youth drawn earthwards, yet
with a clinging sense of far mystic reaches, which he refuses as yet to
explore. The death of Flavian rudely shatters this phase of his
experience, and we find him face to face with death. The section begins
with the wonderful hymn of the Emperor Hadrian to his dying soul--

Dear wanderer, gipsy soul of mine,
Sweet stranger, pleasing guest and comrade of my flesh,
Whither away? Into what new land,
Pallid one, stoney o