which she was very fond--five times, so that
she had a plate heaping with golden untouched balls before her. After
breakfast, she felt a great desire to run away, so she asked Eric to
take her to the Capitol, and leave her there for a time. "I want to
see something solid this morning, that has lasted a long while, and the
marbles will do me good."

Yes, Eric would take her at once. Would she go and get her hat? She
went for it, and scolded herself all the time for running away when she
wanted to stay home. Yet, after all, who dares put out one's hand to
grasp the moon when at last it approaches? No woman, at any rate.

There was a malicious sort of teasing pleasure in running away from
Norman, mingled with a shrinking modesty; and, besides, he knew the
way to the Capitol, if he chose to follow, and knew she was to be there
alone. So, on the whole, Mae went off with a blissful heart.

As she sat down in that celebrated room, immortalized by the Gladiator,
the Faun and the Antinous, scales seemed to fall from her eyes and a
weight from her heart. Life meant something more than the mere play she
delighted in, or the labor she despised. She took it in in this way. She
realized, first of all, the enduringness of the marbles. They had stood,
they will stand, for thousands of years. What have stood? What will
stand? Idle blocks of stone, without form or meaning, or simply three
beautiful shapes? No; three souls, thinks Mae, three real people,
and she looks at the abiding faun, freedom and joy of the Satyr, the
continual sentimental sadness of the Antinous, and the perpetual brave
death-struggle of the Gladiator. They are living on now, and touching
our hearts. Their mute lips open other eloquent mouths to speak for
them. Hawthorne and Byron tell us what the Faun's soul, what the
Gladiator's soul, look from the white marbles to us, and the world daily
repeats the story the Antinous whispers in his bent, beautiful head, the
vanitas vanitatum that our own hearts whisper, when we drop earnest life
for voluptuous pleasures.

The Faun may smile, although life is only one long play-day in green
fields and woods, because he is a Faun. The man must sigh, when he has
drained his wine-cups and laughed his heartiest laugh, and wakes to
another morning, because he is a man. The cry of humanity echoes in our
souls. We cannot stifle it; we may hush it, and follow our idle joys,
but the day comes when we bend our head with Antinous and So