that he was twenty years
old again, with black curls, lively legs, and a taste for iambs, to
get so out of patience with poor Florus. But it certainly was annoying
to be pressed for odes when he had long ago determined to spend the
rest of his life in studying philosophy. To be sure, he had once made
that vow too early and had been forced to tune his lyre again after
he had thought to hang it in Apollo's temple. He had had a pride in
the enthusiastic reception of his new odes, and in the proof that
his hand had by no means lost its cunning; but Florus ought to
understand that he had at that time yielded to the Emperor's request
as equivalent to a command, and that he meant what he said when he
declared that he wished to leave the lyric arena.

He had never been unreasonable in his demands on life, nor slow in
the contribution of his share. It seemed only just that he should
spend the years that were left to him as he chose. People talked about
his tossing off an ode as if he could do it at dessert, and spend
the solid part of the day in other pursuits. They little dreamed that
the solid part of many days had often gone into one of his lyric
trifles, and that Polyhymnia, she who had invented the lyre, and
struck it herself in Lesbos, was among the most exacting of the Muses.
With the departure of his green youth and play-time had gone the
inclination, as well as the courage, to set himself such tasks. He
had always been interested in reading the moral philosophers, and,
whatever his friends said, he meant to keep to his books, and to write,
if he wrote at all, in a comfortable, contemplative style.

Besides (so his irritated thoughts ran on), how could Florus expect
a man who lived in Rome to write imaginative poetry? How tiresome
the days were there! Whenever he went out, some one wanted his help
in a dull business matter or dragged him off to a public reading by
some equally dull author. Even if he tried to visit his friends, one
lived on the Quirinal and one on the Aventine, and the walk between
lay through noisy streets filled with clumsy workmen, huge wagons,
funeral processions, mad dogs, dirty pigs, and human bores. No notes
from the lyre could make themselves heard amid such confusion.

Suddenly his feeling quickened: how good it was to be away just now
in this autumnal season, when Rome laboured under leaden winds
fraught with melancholy depression, and when his head always gave
him trouble and he especially