After a pause the lady added: When I come to consider what he might have done for me, had he possessed Push, it makes my spleen swell. Just consider! What is Galba compared with him? What any of these fellows who have been popping up their heads like carp or trout when the May flies are about? My dear, had your dear father been as complete a man as I am a woman, at this moment I might be Empress.
That would have contented you.
It would have been a step in that direction.
What more could you desire?
Why, to be a goddess. Did not the Senate pronounce Poppæa divine, and to be worshipped and invoked, after Nero had kicked her and she died? And that baby of his it died of fits in teething that became a goddess also. Nasty little thing! I saw it, it did nothing but dribble and squall, but is a god for all that. My dear Domitia, think! the Divine Duilia! Salus Italiæ, with my temples, my altars, my statues. By the Immortal Twelve, I think I should have tried to cut out Aphrodite, and have been represented rising from the foam. Oh! it would have been too, too lovely. But there! it makes me mad all that might have been, and would have been to a certainty, had your dear father listened to me at Antioch. But he had a head. She touched her brow. Something wrong there no Push.
But, dearest mother, this may be an approved motive for such as you and for all nobles. But then for the artisan, the herdsman, the slave, Push cant be a principle of life to such as they.
My child, how odd you are! What need we consider them? They may have their own motives, I cant tell; I never was a herdsman nor a slave never did any useful work in my life. As to a slave, of course Push is a motive he pushes to gain his freedom.
And when he has got that?
Then he strives to accumulate a fortune.
And then?
Then he will have a statue or a bust of himself sculptured, and when he gets old, erect a splendid mausoleum.
And so all ends in a handful of dust.
Of course. What else would you have? Remember, a splendid mausoleum.
Yes, enclosing a pot of ashes. That picture teaches a sad truth. Pursue your butterfly: when you have caught it, you find only dust between your fingers.
Domitia! as the Gods love me! I wish you would refrain from this talk. It is objectionable. It is prematurely oldening you, and what ages you reflects on me it advances my years. I will listen to no more of this. If you relish it, I do not; go, chatter to the Philosopher Claudius Senecio, he is paid to talk this stuff.
I will not speak to him. I know beforehand what he will say.
He will give you excellent advice, he is hired to do it.
O yes to bear everything with equanimity. That is the sum and substance of his doctrine. Then not to be too wise about the Gods; to aim to sit on the fulcrum of a see-saw, when I prefer an end of the plank.
Equanimity! I desire it with my whole soul.
But why so, mother? It is not running thought, but stagnation.
Because, my dear, it keeps off wrinkles.
Mother, you and I will never understand each other.
As the Gods love me, I sincerely hope not. Send me Plancus, Lucilla. I must scold him so as to soothe my ruffled spirits.
And, Euphrosyne, go, send the Chaldæan to me in the garden, said the girl.
The slave obeyed and departed.
Ubi Felicitas? Running, pursuing and finding nothing, said Domitia as she went forth.
The sun was hot. She passed under an arched trellis with vines trained over it; the swelling bunches hung down within.
At intervals in the arcade were openings through which could be seen the still lake, and beyond the beautiful ridges of the limestone Sabine Mountains. The air was musical with the hum of bees.
Domitia paced up and down this walk for some while.
Presently the Magus appeared at the end, under the guidance of the girl Euphrosyne.
He approached, bowing at intervals, till he reached Domitia, when he stood still.
Ubi Felicitas? asked she. And when he raised his eyebrows in question, she added in explanation: There is a picture in the atrium representing a damsel in pursuit of a butterfly, and beneath is the legend I have just quoted. When she catches the butterfly it will not content her. It will be a dead pinch of dust. It is now some months since you spoke on the Artemis, when I asked you a question, and then you were forced to admit that all your science was built up on conjecture, and that there was no certainty underlying it. But a guess is better than nothing, and a guess that carries the moral sense with it in approval, may come near to the truth. I recall all you then said. Do not repeat it, but answer my question, Ubi Felicitas? I asked it of my mother, and she said that it was to be found in Push. If I asked Senecio, he would say in Equanimity. Where say you that it is to be found?
The soul of man is a ray out of the Godhead, answered the Magus, it is enveloped, depressed, smothered by matter; and the straining of the spirit in man after happiness is the striving of his divine nature to emancipate itself from the thraldom of matter and return to Him from whom the ray emanated.
Then felicity is to be found ?
In the disengagement of the good in man from matter, which presses it down, and which is evil.
Evil! exclaimed Domitia, looking through one of the gaps in the arcade, at the lake; on a balustrade above the water stood a dreaming peacock, whilst below it grew bright flowers. Beyond, as clouds, hung the blue Sabine hills.
The Divine ray, said the girl, seems rarely to delight in its incorporation in Matter, and to find therein its expression, much as do our thoughts in words. May it not be that Primordial Idea is inarticulate without Matter in which to utter itself?
Felicity, continued the Chaldæan, disregarding the objection, is sought by many in the satisfying of their animal appetites, in pleasing eye and ear and taste and smell. But in all is found the after-taste of satiety that gluts. True happiness is to be sought in teaching the mind to dispense with sensuous delights, and to live in absorption in itself.
Why, Elymas! said Domitia. In fine, you arrive by another method at that Apathy which Senecio the Stoic advocates. I grant you give a reason which seems to me lame but it is a reason, whereas he supplies none. But I like not your goal Apathy is the reverse from Felicity. Leave me.
The Magus retired, mortified at his doctrine being so ill received.
Then Euphrosyne approached timidly.
Domitia, who was in moody thought, looked up. The girl could not venture to speak till invited to do so by her mistress.
Your lady mother has desired me to announce to you that Lucius Ælius Lamia hath ridden over from Rome.
I will come presently, said Domitia; I am just now too troubled in mind. You, child, tell me, where is the physician, Luke?
Lady, I do not know; he quitted us on reaching Rome.
Stay, Euphrosyne. Thine is a cheerful spirit. Where is felicity to be found?
My gracious mistress, I find mine in serving thee in my duty.
Ah, child! That is the sort of reply my father might have made. In the discharge of what he considered his duty, he was of a wondrous sweet and equable temper. Is it so, that Felicity is only to be found in the discharge of duty? And those torpid flies, the young loafers of our noble families, whose only occupation is to play ball, and whose amusements are vicious; they have it not because none has set them tasks. The ploughman whistles as he drives his team; the vineyard rings with laughter at the gathering of the grapes. The galley-slaves chant as they bend over the oar, and the herdboy pipes as he tends the goats. So each is set a task, and is content in discharge thereof, and each sleeps sweetly at night, when the task is done. But what! is happiness reserved to the bondsman, and not for the master? And only then for the former when the duty imposed is reasonable and honest? For there is none when such an order comes as to fall on the sword or to open the veins. How about us great ladies? And the noble loafers? No task is set us and them.