e greatest
scope to beneficence.

'Such, then, O Sallust! is my life--such my opinions. In this manner I
greet existence and await death. And thou, glad-hearted and kindly
pupil of Epicurus, thou... But come hither, and see what enjoyments,
what hopes are ours--and not the splendor of imperial banquets, nor the
shouts of the crowded circus, nor the noisy forum, nor the glittering
theatre, nor the luxuriant gardens, nor the voluptuous baths of
Rome--shall seem to thee to constitute a life of more vivid and
uninterrupted happiness than that which thou so unreasonably pitiest as
the career of Glaucus the Athenian!--Farewell!'

Nearly Seventeen Centuries had rolled away when the City of Pompeii was
disinterred from its silent tomb, all vivid with undimmed hues; its
walls fresh as if painted yesterday--not a hue faded on the rich mosaic
of its floors--in its forum the half-finished columns as left by the
workman's hand--in its gardens the sacrificial tripod--in its halls the
chest of treasure--in its baths the strigil--in its theatres the counter
of admission--in its saloons the furniture and the lamp--in its
triclinia the fragments of the last feast--in its cubicula the perfumes
and the rouge of faded beauty--and everywhere the bones and skeletons of
those who once moved the springs of that minute yet gorgeous machine of
luxury and of life! In the house of Diomed, in the subterranean vaults,
twenty skeletons (one of a babe) were discovered in one spot by the
door, covered by a fine ashen dust, that had evidently been wafted
slowly through the apertures, until it had filled the whole space.
There were jewels and coins, candelabra for unavailing light, and wine
hardened in the amphorae for a prolongation of agonized life. The sand,
consolidated by damps, had taken the forms of the skeletons as in a
cast; and the traveler may yet see the impression of a female neck and
bosom of young and round proportions--the trace of the fated Julia! It
seems to the inquirer as if the air had been gradually changed into a
sulphurous vapor; the inmates of the vaults had rushed to the door, to
find it closed and blocked up by the scoria without, and in their
attempts to force it, had been suffocated with the atmosphere.

In the garden was found a skeleton with a key by its bony hand, and near
it a bag of coins. This is believed to have been the master of the
house--the unfortunate Diomed, who had probably sought to escape by the
garde