ongue refuses to form sounds and words. I confess that I am anxious,
for I think his mind may prey too far upon his physical strength.
Only last week Varius told me that he thinks Virgil himself is
obsessed by the idea that he may die before he has finished his work,
he has begged him so often to promise to destroy whatever is left
uncompleted."

A sudden sadness, like the shadow of familiar pain, fell upon
Maecenas's face.

"Flaccus, my Flaccus," he exclaimed, "it is I who shall die, die
before Virgil finishes his _AEneid_, or you your _Odes_. My life will
have been futile. The Romans do not understand. They want their
standards back from the Parthians, they want the mines of Spain and
the riches of Arabia. They cast greedy eyes on Britain and make much
ado about ruling Gaul and Asia and Greece and Egypt. And they think
that I am one of them. But the Etruscan ghosts within me stir
strangely at times, and walk abroad through the citadel of my soul.
Then I know that the idlest dream of a dreamer may have form when
our civilisation shall have crumbled, and that the verse of a poet,
even of this boy Propertius, will outlast the toil of my nights. You
and Virgil often tell me that you owe your fortunes to me,--your lives,
you sometimes say with generous exaggeration. But I tell you that
the day is coming when I shall owe my life to you, when, save for
you, I shall be a mere name in the rotting archives of a forgotten
state. Why, then, do you delay to fulfill my hope? Virgil at least
is working. What are you doing, my best of friends?"

Davus had come in, and was laying the soft, thick folds of a long
coat over his master's shoulders, as Maecenas's almost fretful
appeal came to an end.

Horace, accustomed to his friend's overstrained moods, and
understanding the cure for them, turned toward him with a gentle
respect which was free from all constraint or apology. His voice lost
its frequent note of good-tempered mockery and became warm with
feeling, as he answered:--

"My friend, have patience. You will not die, nor shall I, until I
have laid before you a work worthy of your friendship. You are indeed
the honour and the glory of my life, and your faith in my lyric gift
lifts me to the stars. But you must remember that my Muse is wayward
and my vein of genius not too rich. No Hercules will reward my travail,
so do not expect of me the birth-pangs that are torturing Virgil.
I have time to look abroad on life and to corre