The young Marius represented an ancient family whose estate had come
down to him much curtailed through the extravagance of a certain
Marcellus two generations before, a favourite in his day of the
fashionable world at Rome, where he had at least spent his substance
with a correctness of taste Marius might seem to have inherited from
him; as he was believed also to resemble him in a singularly pleasant
smile, consistent however, in the younger face, with some degree of
sombre expression when the mind within was but slightly moved.

As the means of life decreased, the farm had crept nearer and nearer to
the dwelling-house, about which there was therefore a trace of workday
negligence or homeliness, not without its picturesque charm for some,
for the young master himself among them. The more observant passer-by
would note, curious as to the inmates, a certain amount of dainty care
amid that neglect, as if it came in part, perhaps, from a reluctance to
disturb old associations. It was significant of the national
character, that a sort of elegant gentleman farming, as we say, had
been much affected by some of the most cultivated [15] Romans. But it
became something more than an elegant diversion, something of a serious
business, with the household of Marius; and his actual interest in the
cultivation of the earth and the care of flocks had brought him, at
least, intimately near to those elementary conditions of life, a
reverence for which, the great Roman poet, as he has shown by his own
half-mystic pre-occupation with them, held to be the ground of
primitive Roman religion, as of primitive morals. But then, farm-life
in Italy, including the culture of the olive and the vine, has a grace
of its own, and might well contribute to the production of an ideal
dignity of character, like that of nature itself in this gifted region.
Vulgarity seemed impossible. The place, though impoverished, was still
deservedly dear, full of venerable memories, and with a living
sweetness of its own for to-day.

To hold by such ceremonial traditions had been a part of the struggling
family pride of the lad's father, to which the example of the head of
the state, old Antoninus Pius--an example to be still further enforced
by his successor--had given a fresh though perhaps somewhat artificial
popularity. It had been consistent with many another homely and
old-fashioned trait in him, not to undervalue the charm of
exclusiveness and immemoria