the philanthropic god. Certainly the little crowd around seemed to
find singular refreshment in gazing on it. The whole place appeared
sensibly influenced by the amiable and healthful spirit of the thing.
All the objects of the country were there at their freshest. In the
great park-like enclosure for the maintenance of the sacred animals
offered by the convalescent, grass and trees were allowed to grow
with a kind of graceful wildness; otherwise, all was wonderfully
nice. And that freshness seemed to have something moral in its
influence, as if it acted upon the body and the merely bodily [37]
powers of apprehension, through the intelligence; and to the end of
his visit Marius saw no more serpents.

A lad was just then drawing water for ritual uses, and Marius
followed him as he returned from the well, more and more impressed by
the religiousness of all he saw, on his way through a long cloister
or corridor, the walls well-nigh hidden under votive inscriptions
recording favours from the son of Apollo, and with a distant
fragrance of incense in the air, explained when he turned aside
through an open doorway into the temple itself. His heart bounded as
the refined and dainty magnificence of the place came upon him
suddenly, in the flood of early sunshine, with the ceremonial lights
burning here and there, and withal a singular expression of sacred
order, a surprising cleanliness and simplicity. Certain priests, men
whose countenances bore a deep impression of cultivated mind, each
with his little group of assistants, were gliding round silently to
perform their morning salutation to the god, raising the closed thumb
and finger of the right hand with a kiss in the air, as they came and
went on their sacred business, bearing their frankincense and lustral
water. Around the walls, at such a level that the worshippers might
read, as in a book, the story of the god and his sons, the