“I was eighteen years old when I married Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna, the great leader of the ‘Populares.’  Sulla, then dictator, ordered me to put her away.  Cornelia had not been the wife of my father’s choice.  He had wished to force upon me Cossutia, an heiress, but with little save riches to commend her.  I gained neither riches, political influence, nor family good-will by the marriage.  Sulla was in the fulness of his strength.  I had seen nearly all my friends proscribed, exiled, or murdered.  Sulla bade me put away my wife, and take such a one as he should appoint.  He was graciously pleased to spare my life, in order that I might become his tool.  Why did I refuse?”

Caesar was sitting upon the couch and speaking nervously, in a manner that betokened great and unusual excitement.

“I knew the dictator meant to favour me if I would only humour him in this matter.  A word from him and all ambition of mine had probably been at an end, I take no praise to myself for this.  I refused him.  I defied his threats.  He seized my property, deprived me of my priesthood,[125] finally let loose his pack of assassins upon me.  I almost became their victim.  But my uncle, Aurelius Cotta, and some good friends of mine among the Vestal Virgins pleaded my cause.  I escaped.  Sulla said he was over-persuaded in sparing me; ’In me were many Mariuses.’  But did I regret the loss, the danger, the check for the time being to my career?  Quintus Drusus, I counted them as of little importance, not to be weighed beside the pure love that mastered me.  And as the faithful husband of my Cornelia I remained, until cruel death closed her dear eyes forever.  One can love once, and honourably, with his whole being, but not truly and honourably love a second time, at least not in a manner like unto the first.  Therefore, my Quintus, blush not to confess that which I know is yours,—­a thing which too many of us Romans do not know in these declining days,—­something that would almost convince me there were indeed celestial gods, who care for us and guide our darkened destinies.  For when we reason of the gods, our reason tells us they are not.  But when pure passion possesses our hearts, then we see tangible visions, then our dreams become no dreams but realities; we mount up on wings, we fly, we soar to Olympus, to Atlantis, to the Elysian fields; we no longer wish to know, we feel; we no longer wish to prove, we see; and what our reason bids us to reject, a surer monitor bids us to receive:  the dangers and perils of this life of shades upon the earth are of no account, for we are transformed into immortals in whose veins courses the divine ichor, and whose food is ambrosial.  Therefore while we love we do indeed dwell in the Islands of the Blessed:  and when the vision fades away, its sweet memory remains to cheer us in our life below, and teach us that where the cold intellect may not go, there is indeed some way, on through the mists of the future, which leads we know not whither; but which leads to things purer and fairer than those which in our most ambitious moments we crave.”