times and sundry.

In Rome, Marcus Seneca made head as he never did in Cordova. There he
was only Marcus Micawber: but here his memory feats won him the
distinction that genius deserves. There is a grave question whether a
verbal memory does not go with a very mediocre intellect, but Marcus
said this argument was put out by a man with no memory worth mentioning.

Rome was at her ripest flower--the petals were soon to loosen and
flutter to the ground, but nobody thought so--they never do. Everywhere
the Roman legions were victorious, and commerce sailed the seas in
prosperous ships. Power manifests itself in conspicuous waste, and the
habit grows until conspicuous waste imagines itself power. Conditions in
Rome had evolved our old friend, the Sophist, the man who lived but to
turn an epigram, to soulfully contemplate a lily, to sigh mysteriously,
and cultivate the far-away look. These men were elocutionists who
gesticulated in curves, and let the thought follow the attitude. They
were not content to be themselves, but chased the airy, fairy fabric of
a fancy and called it life.

* * * * *

The pretense and folly of Roman society made the Sophists possible--like
all sects they ministered to a certain cast of mind. Over against the
Sophists there were the Stoics, the purest, noblest and sanest of all
ancient cults, corresponding very closely to our Quakers, before Worth
and Wanamaker threw them a hawse and took them in tow. It is a tide of
feeling produces a sect, not a belief: primitive Christianity was a
revulsion from Phariseeism, and a William Penn and a wan Ann Lee form
the antithesis of an o'ervaulting, fantastic and soulless ritual.

The father of Seneca hung upon the favor of the Sophists: he taught them
mnemonics, rhetoric and elocution, and the fact that he was a courtly
Spaniard was in his favor--we dote on a foreign accent and relish the
thing that comes from afar.

Marcus Seneca was getting rich. He never perceived the absurdity of a
life of make-believe; but his son, Lucius Seneca, heir to his mother's
discerning mind, when nineteen years old forswore the Sophists, and
sided with the unpopular Stoics, much to the chagrin of the father.

Seneca--let us call him so after this--wore the simple white robe of the
Stoics, without ornament or jewelry. He drank no wine, and ate no meat.
Vegetarianism comes in waves, and it is interesting to see that in an
essay on the subject, Se