also by a white stone.

If Valerius could only know how he felt! She was the greatest lady
in Rome, accoutred with wealth and prestige and incomparable beauty.
And she loved him, and was as good and pure and tender-hearted as
any unmarried girl in Verona. He was her lover, but often he felt
toward her as a father might feel toward a child. Catullus had
trembled as he brought out from his inner sanctuary this shyest
treasure. And never should he forget the healing sense of peace that
came to him when Valerius rode closer and put his arm around his
shoulder. "Diogenes," he said, "your flame is still bright. I could
wish you had not fallen in love with another man's wife, and if he
were still living I should try to convince you of the folly of it.
But I know this hot heart of yours is as pure as the snow we see on
the Alps in midsummer. That is all I need to know." And they had ridden
on in the darkness toward the lights of home.

The wind rose in a fresh wail: "He is dead, he is dead." The touch
of his arm was lost in the unawakening night. His perfect speech was
stilled in the everlasting silence. A smile, both bitter and wistful,
came upon Catullus's lips as he remembered a letter he had had
yesterday from Lucretius, bidding him listen to the voice of Nature
who would bring him peace. "What is so bitter," his friend had urged,
"if it comes in the end to sleep? The wretched cannot want more of
life, and the happy men, men like Valerius, go unreluctantly, like
well-fed guests from a banquet, to enter upon untroubled rest. Nor
is his death outside of law. From all eternity life and death have
been at war with each other. No day and no night passes when the first
cry of a child tossed up on the shores of light is not mingled with
the wailings of mourners. Let me tell you how you may transmute your