he graphic
arts. It has been made the theme of poets and of prose narrators. It has
appeared and reappeared in a thousand forms, and it appeals as much
to the imagination to-day as it did when Antony deserted his almost
victorious troops and hastened in a swift galley from Actium in pursuit
of Cleopatra.

The wonder of the story is explained by its extraordinary nature. Many
men in private life have lost fortune and fame for the love of woman.
Kings have incurred the odium of their people, and have cared nothing
for it in comparison with the joys of sense that come from the lingering
caresses and clinging kisses. Cold-blooded statesmen, such as Parnell,
have lost the leadership of their party and have gone down in history
with a clouded name because of the fascination exercised upon them by
some woman, often far from beautiful, and yet possessing the mysterious
power which makes the triumphs of statesmanship seem slight in
comparison with the swiftly flying hours of pleasure.

But in the case of Antony and Cleopatra alone do we find a man flinging
away not merely the triumphs of civic honors or the headship of a
state, but much more than these--the mastery of what was practically the
world--in answer to the promptings of a woman's will. Hence the story
of the Roman triumvir and the Egyptian queen is not like any other
story that has yet been told. The sacrifice involved in it was so
overwhelming, so instantaneous, and so complete as to set this narrative
above all others. Shakespeare's genius has touched it with the glory
of a great imagination. Dryden, using it in the finest of his plays,
expressed its nature in the title "All for Love."

The distinguished Italian historian, Signor Ferrero, the author of many
books, has tried hard to eliminate nearly all the romantic elements
from the tale, and to have us see in it not the triumph of love, but
the blindness of ambition. Under his handling it becomes almost a sordid
drama of man's pursuit of power and of woman's selfishness. Let us
review the story as it remains, even after we have taken full account
of Ferrero's criticism. Has the world for nineteen hundred years been
blinded by a show of sentiment? Has it so absolutely been misled by
those who lived and wrote in the days which followed closely on the
events that make up this extraordinary narrative?

In answering these questions we must consider, in the first place,
the scene, and, in the second place, the psychol