First there is his friend, Flavian the Epicurean, of the school that
delights in pleasure without afterthought, and is free from the burden
and restraint of conscience; and later on, _The Golden Book_ of
Apuleius, with its exquisite story of Cupid and Psyche, and its search
for perfectness in the frankly material life. The moral of its main
story is that the soul must not look upon the face of its love, nor seek
to analyse too closely the elements from which it springs. Spirituality
will be left desolate if it breaks this ban, and its wiser course is to
enjoy without speculation. Thus we see the youth drawn earthwards, yet
with a clinging sense of far mystic reaches, which he refuses as yet to
explore. The death of Flavian rudely shatters this phase of his
experience, and we find him face to face with death. The section begins
with the wonderful hymn of the Emperor Hadrian to his dying soul--

Dear wanderer, gipsy soul of mine,
Sweet stranger, pleasing guest and comrade of my flesh,
Whither away? Into what new land,
Pallid one, stoney one, naked one?

But the sheer spectacle and fact of death is too violent an experience
for such sweet consolations, and the death of Flavian comes like a final
revelation of nothing less than the soul's extinction. Not unnaturally,
the next phase is a rebound into epicureanism, spiritual indeed in the
sense that it could not stoop to low pleasures, but living wholly in the
present none the less, with a strong and imperative appreciation of the
fullness of earthly life.

The next phase of the life of Marius opens with a journey to Rome,
during which he meets a second friend, the soldier Cornelius. This very
distinctly drawn character fascinates the eye from the first. In him we