the pursuits of the blameless consul, inspired
him with a sense of awful veneration, that did not easily or quickly pass
away.

For some moments, as he gradually recovered the elasticity of his spirits,
he amused himself by examining the exquisitely wrought gems on the table;
but after a little while, when Cicero came not, he crossed the room
quietly to the bookshelves, and selecting a volume of Homer, drew it forth
from its richly embossed case, and seating himself on the bronze settle
with his back toward the door, had soon forgotten where he was, and the
grave business which brought him thither, in the sublime simplicity of the
blind rhapsodist.

An hour or more elapsed thus; yet Paul took no note of time, nor moved at
all except to unroll with his right hand the lower margin of the parchment
as he read, while with the left he rolled up the top; so that nearly the
same space of the manuscript remained constantly before his eyes, although
the reader was continually advancing in the poem.

At length the door opened noiselessly, and with a silent foot, shod in the
light slippers which the Romans always wore when in the house, Cicero
entered the apartment.

The consul was at this time in the very prime of intellectual manhood, it
having been decreed(6) about a century before, that no person should be
elected to that highest office of the state, who should not have attained
his forty-third year. He was a tall and elegantly formed man, with nothing
especially worthy of remark in his figure, if it were not that his neck
was unusually long and slender, though not so much so as to constitute any
drawback to his personal appearance, which, without being what would
exactly be termed handsome, was both elegant and graceful. His features
were not, indeed, very bold or striking; but intellect was strongly and
singularly marked in every line of the face; and the expression,--calm,
thoughtful, and serene,--though it had not the quick and restless play of
ever-varying lights and shadows which belongs to the quicker and more
imaginative temperaments among men of the highest genius,--could not fail
to impress any one with the conviction, that the mind which informed it
must be of eminent capacity, and depth, and power.

He entered, as I have said, silently; and although there was nothing of
stealthiness in his gait, which being very light and slow was yet both
firm and springy, nor any of that cunning in his manner which is so oft