ought to Titianus the news of the
sovereign's death. Hadrian had given him his freedom before he died and
had left him a handsome legacy.

The prefect gave him a piece of land to farm and continued in friendly
relations with his Christian neighbor and his pretty daughter, who grew
up among her father's co-religionists.

When Titianus had told his wife the melancholy news he added solemnly:

"A great sovereign is dead. The pettinesses which disfigured the man
Hadrian will be forgotten by posterity, for the ruler Hadrian was one of
those men whom Fate sets in the places they belong to, and who, true to
their duty, struggle indefatigably to the end. With wise moderation he
was so far master of himself as to bridle his ambition and to defy the
blame and prejudice of all the Romans. The hardest, and perhaps the
wisest, resolution of his life was to abandon the provinces which it
would have exhausted the power of the Empire to retain. He travelled
over every portion of his dominion within the limits he himself had
set to it, shrinking from neither frost nor heat, and he tried to be as
thoroughly acquainted with every portion of it as if the Empire were a
small estate he had inherited. His duties as a sovereign forced him to
travel, and his love of travel lightened the duty. He was possessed by
a real passion to understand and learn everything. Even the
Incomprehensible set no limits to his thirst for knowledge, but ever
striving to see farther and to dig deeper than is possible to the mind
of man, he wasted a great part of his mighty powers in trying to snatch
aside the curtain which hides the destinies of the future. No one ever
worked at so many secondary occupations as he, and yet no former Emperor
ever kept his eye so unerringly fixed on the main task of his life,
the consolidation and maintenance of the strength of the state and the
improvement and prosperity of its citizens."

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

A well-to-do man always gets a higher price than a poor one
Avoid all useless anxiety
Dried merry-thought bone of a fowl
Enjoy the present day
Facts are differently reflected in different minds
Happiness is only the threshold to misery
Have not yet learned not to be astonished
Have lived to feel such profound contempt for the world
I must either rest or begin upon something new
Idleness had long since grown to be the occupation of his life
If one onl