hdrawn
from his appointed place in the amphitheatre, at a grand public show,
which after an interval of many months, was presented there, in honour
of the nuptials of Lucius Verus and Lucilla.

And it was still to the eye, through visible movement and aspect, that
the character, or genius of Cornelius made itself felt by Marius; even
as on that afternoon when he had girt on his armour, among the
expressive lights and shades of the dim old villa at the roadside, and
every object of his knightly array had seemed to be but sign or symbol
of some other thing far beyond it. For, consistently with his really
poetic temper, all influence reached Marius, even more exclusively than
he was aware, through the medium of sense. From Flavian in that brief
early summer of his existence, he had derived a powerful impression of
the [234] "perpetual flux": he had caught there, as in cipher or
symbol, or low whispers more effective than any definite language, his
own Cyrenaic philosophy, presented thus, for the first time, in an
image or person, with much attractiveness, touched also, consequently,
with a pathetic sense of personal sorrow:--a concrete image, the
abstract equivalent of which he could recognise afterwards, when the
agitating personal influence had settled down for him, clearly enough,
into a theory of practice. But of what possible intellectual formula
could this mystic Cornelius be the sensible exponent; seeming, as he
did, to live ever in close relationship with, and recognition of, a
mental view, a source of discernment, a light upon his way, which had
certainly not yet sprung up for Marius? Meantime, the discretion of
Cornelius, his energetic clearness and purity, were a charm, rather
physical than moral: his exquisite correctness of spirit, at all
events, accorded so perfectly with the regular beauty of his person, as
to seem to depend upon it. And wholly different as was this later
friendship, with its exigency, its warnings, its restraints, from the
feverish attachment to Flavian, which had made him at times like an
uneasy slave, still, like that, it was a reconciliation to the world of
sense, the visible world. From the hopefulness of this gracious
presence, all visible things around him, even the commonest objects of
everyday life--if they but [235] stood together to warm their hands at
the same fire--took for him a new poetry, a delicate fresh bloom, and
interest. It was as if his bodily eyes had been indeed m