ave darkened
into melancholy.

At a happy moment Totila's friendship shone into the inmost depths of
his heart, and penetrated it with such a sunny warmth that his noble
nature was thereby enabled to rise with elasticity from a severe shock
which it received by means of this very friendship.

Let us hear what he himself wrote about this circumstance to the
Prefect.

"To Cethegus the Prefect, Julius Montanus.

"The cold-hearted reply to my enthusiastic report of my newly-formed
friendship to Totila, at first--surely contrary to your wish--hurt me
sorely, but later it was the means of enhancing the happiness of this
friendship in a manner, however, which you could neither foresee nor
wish. Sorrow caused by you was soon changed into sorrow for _you_.
Though at first I felt hurt because you treated my deepest feelings
as the mere enthusiasm of a sickly boy, and tried to assail my
profoundest convictions with bitter mockery--only _tried_, for they are
unassailable--this feeling was soon changed into one of compassion for
you. It is sad that a man like you, so rich in intellect, should be
so poor in heart. It is sad that you do not know the happiness of
self-denial, or of that unselfish love, which is called in the language
of a belief--more laughed at than credited by you, but to which each
day of pain draws me closer--_caritas_! Forgive the freedom of my
words. I know I have never yet addressed such to you, but I have only
lately become _what_ I am. Perhaps it was not wholly with injustice
that, in your last letter, you blamed the traces of childishness which
you found in me. I believe that they have disappeared since then, and I
speak to you now as a _man_. Your 'medicine' has certainly accelerated
my development, but not in your sense of the word and not according to
your wish. It has brought me pain, holy and refining; it has put my
friendship to a severe test, and, God be thanked, the fire has not
destroyed it, but hardened it for ever. Read on and you will wonder at
the manner in which Heaven has carried out your plans! Though pained at
your letter, I very soon, with my habitual obedience, sought your
friend, Valerius Procillus, the trader in purple. He had already left
the town for his charming villa. There I followed him, and found a man
of much experience, and a zealous friend of freedom and of his country.
His daughter Valeria is a jewel! You prophesied truly. My intention of
being extremely reserved melted