_May_ 1.--Absurd processions in the streets. Faustina painted her face black and walked round the garden in a movable bower of greenery. I could see no kind of point or sense in the episode. Under cross-examination, she confessed that the idea had been suggested to her by her nurse. All this is very trying. It sets Commodus the worst possible example. But I suppose I must endure this. The ways of Fate are inscrutable, and after all, things might have been worse. Faustina might have been a loose woman! A profligate! _May_ 6.--Read out the first canto of my epic on the origins of species to Faustina and Commodus. Commodus, I regret to say, yawned and finally dozed. Faustina enjoyed it immensely. She said she always thought that I was a real poet, and that now she _knew it_. She says she thinks it is far better than Homer or Virgil; that there is so much more in it. Faustina is a very good judge of literature. There is no one whose opinion on matters of art and literature I value more. For instance she thinks Sappho's lyrics are not only trivial, but coarse. She also thinks Æschylus much overrated, which, of course, he is. How far we have got beyond all that! Some day I mean to write a play on the subject of love. It has never yet been properly treated--on the stage. Sophocles and Seneca knew nothing of women; and Euripides' women are far too complicated. _May_ 12.--Meditated on religion, but was again interrupted by Faustina just as I was making a really illuminating note on the subject of Isis. Much distressed by modern free thought. Commodus pays much too much attention to the minor goddesses, but this, at his age, is excusable. He is, thank goodness, entirely untainted by the detestable Jewish or so-called "Christian" superstition, which I fear is spreading. _May_ 13.--V.... and A.... dined. Also a Greek philosopher whose name escapes me. The Greek was most indiscreet. He discussed the Christian question before everybody. He must have been aware by my expression that the topic is one which I consider unfit for public discussion. He not only discussed, but he actually defended this hysterical, obstinate, unpatriotic, and fundamentally criminal sect. I do not, of course, entirely credit the stories current with regard to their orgies and their human sacrifices. The evidence is not--so far--sufficiently sound; but, whatever their practices and their rites may be, the Christians are a pernicious and dangerous sect. They will prove, unless they are extirpated, the ruin of the Empire. They have no notion of civic duty; no reverence, no respect for custom or tradition. They are unfilial, and they are the enemies of the human race. They are a cancer in the State. Faustina agrees with me, I am glad to say.