one word, Love. Without Zenobia, what should I be? I cannot conceive of
existence, deprived of her, or of her regard. Loving her, and Fausta, and
Longinus, as I do--not to forget Livia and the dear Faustula--and beloved
of all in return--and my happiness scarcely seems to admit of addition.'

'With what pain,' said I, 'does one contemplate the mere possibility that
affections such as these are to last only for the few years which make up
the sum of human life. Must I believe, must you believe, that all this
fair scene is to end forever at death? That you, bound to each other by so
many ties, are to be separated, and both of you to be divided from
Zenobia, and all of us to fall into nothingness, silence, and darkness?
Rather than that, would that the life we now enjoy might be immortal! Here
are beautiful objects, among which one might be willing to live forever. I
am never weary of the moon and her soft light, nor of the balmy air, nor
of the bright greens of the herbage, nor of the forms of plain and
mountain, nor of the human beings, infinite in the varieties of their
character, who surround me wherever I go. Here now have I wandered far
from my home, yet in what society and in what scenes do I find myself! The
same heaven is above me, the same forms of vegetable life around me? and
what is more, friends already dear as those I have left behind. In this
very spot, were it but as an humble attendant upon the greatness of the
Queen, could I be content to dwell.'

'Truly, I think you might,' cried Fausta; 'having chosen for yourself so
elysian a spot, and filled it with such inhabitants, it is no great proof
of a contented spirit that you should love to inhabit it. But how many
such spots does the world present?--and how many such inhabitants? The
question I think is, would you be ready to accept the common lot of man as
an immortal one? I can easily believe that many, were they seated in these
gardens, and waited on by attendant slaves, and their whole being made