laughed at on both accounts; sympathized
with by nobody; hearing all whispers, and fearfully sensitive to
them. But

_"Before the ear can hear, it must have lost its sensitiveness."_

The storm was upon him; the silence was ahead; he was rocked
and shaken and stunned by the earthquakes and thunders of
Initiation: when a man has to be hopeless, and battered, and
stripped of all things: a naked soul afflicted with fiery rains
and torments; and to have no pride to back him; and no ambition
to back him; and no prospect before him at all, save such as can
be seen with the it may be unopened eyes of faith. This is the
way Tiberius endured his trials:--

All Rome knew what Julia was, except Augustus. So it is said;
and perhaps truly; for here comes in the mystery of human
duality: a thing hard enough to understand in ourselves, that
are common humanity; how much harder the variety that appears in
one such as Augustus! You may say, He must have known. Well,
there was the Adept Soul; that, I doubt not, would have known.
But perhaps it is that those who have all knowledge at their beck
and call, have the power to know or not know what they will?--to
know what shall help, not to know what shall hinder their work?
Julia was not to be saved: was, probably, tainted with madness
like so many of her descendants:--then what the Adept Soul could
not forfend, why would the human personality, the warn-hearted
father, be aware of? Had that last known, how should he escape
being bowed down with grief: then in those years when all his
powers and energies were needed? Octavian had gone through storm
and silence long since: in the days of the Triumvirate, and his
enforced partnership in its nefarious deeds;--now his personal
mind and his hands were needed to guide the Empire: and needed
clear and untrammeled with grief... Until Tiberius should be
ready; at least until Tiberius.... So I imagine it possible that
the soul of Augustus kept from its personality that wounding
knowledge about Julia.

Tiberius was not the one to interfere with its purposes. Why did
he not get a divorce? The remedy was clear and easy; and he
would have ceased to be the laughing stock of Rome. He did not
get a divorce; or try to; he said no word; he would not
lighten his own load by sharing it with the Teacher he loved. He
would not wound that Teacher to save himself pain or shame.
Augustus had made severe laws for punishing such offenses a