this great eastern Queen finds her pleasures. She is not more exalted
above the women of Rome by genius, and the severer studies of the closet,
than she is, in my judgment, by the manner and fashion of her recreations.
Let not the dear Lucilia be offended. Were she here with me, her fair and
generous mind would rest, I am sure, after due comparisons, in the very
same conclusions. Fausta is in these respects too, as in others, but her
second self. There is not a feat of horsemanship or archery, nor an
enterprise in the chase, but she will dare all and do all that is dared or
done by Zenobia; not in the spirit of limitation or even rivalry, but from
the native impulses of a soul that reaches at all things great and
difficult. And even Julia, that being who seems too ethereal for earth,
and as if by some strange chance she were misplaced, being here, even
Julia has been trained in the same school, and, as I shall show you, can
join in the chase, and draw the bow, with scarcely less of skill and
vigor--with no less courage--than either her mother or Fausta. Although I
have now seen it, I still can hardly associate such excess of beauty--a
beauty both of form and face so truly belonging to this soft, Syrian
clime--with a strength and dexterity at every exercise that might put to
shame many a Roman who wears both a beard and the manly gown. But this, I
need not say, is not after Julia's heart. She loves more the gentler
encounters of social intercourse, where wit, and sense, and the
affections, have their full play, and the god-like that is within us
asserts its supremacy.

But my purpose now is to tell you how and why it is I am here, and
describe to you as well as I can this new Elysium: and how it is the happy
spirits, whom the gods have permitted to dwell here, pass their hours.

I am here by the invitation of the Queen. A few days after that which we
had so highly enjoyed at the palace, she expressed her desire that