mattered, he added, and as soon as he reached the top of the Mount of
Olives he looked over the desert and was surprised by the smallness of
the hills; like the people who lived among them, they seemed to him to
have dwindled. The world is much smaller than I thought, he said. That
is it, the world seems to have dwindled into a sort of ash-heap; life
has become as tasteless as ashes. It can only end, he said to himself,
by my discovering something that interests me, but nothing interests me
except Jesus. Lack of desire, he said, is my burden, for, desiring one
thing too much, I have lost desire for all else, and that is why life
has come to me like an ash-heap.

As the days went by he began to feel life more oppressive and
unendurable, till one evening the thought crossed his mind that change
of scene might be a great benefit to him. If he were to go to Egypt, he
would journey for fifteen days through the desert, the rocking stride of
the camel would keep him from thinking, and he might arrive in Egypt
eager to listen to the philosophers again. But the temptations that
Egypt presented faded almost as soon as they had arisen, and he deemed
that it might be better for him to choose a city oversea. A sea voyage,
he thought, will cheer me more than a long journey across the desert,
and Joppa is but a day's journey from Jerusalem. But the shipping is
more frequent from Cæsarea, and it is not as far; and for a moment it
seemed to him that he would like to be on board a ship watching the
wind making the sail beautiful. But to what port should he be making
for? he asked. Why not to Greece?--for there are philosophers as great
or greater than those of Alexandria. But philosophers are out of my
humour, he added, and, putting Athens aside, he bethought himself of
Corinth, and the variegated world he would meet there. From every port
ships come to Corinth, bringing different habits, customs, languages,
religions; and for the better part of the evening Corinth seemed to be