While the people of Rome were suffering under the tyranny of their violent ruler, Psyche still remained in solitary confinement. Months had passed, and the seasons with their varying colors had painted the beautiful Campagna; but the young dancing-maiden had lost all idea of time. Day after day, through the weary months, she had seen no one but her deaf and dumb jailer. She had heard no voice but her own. However, she lived in continual dread of another visit from Sejanus. She would pace up and down her little cell; she would gaze for hours upon the wide Campagna; she would sometimes sing an Homeric hymn; but the monotony of her life weighed upon her like a heavy burden. In her painful solitude, where no zephyrs wafted a human sound, except her own sighs and sobs, where no revelations came to her but in chimerical dreams, she lived like some beautiful flower that hangs over a dark abyss. All the pure springs of her imagination, whether flowing gently in soft but sombre shadows of love for her brother, in calm shade for her parents, or in golden sunlight for her lover, lost themselves in the main stream in the valley of oblivion. The summits of the hills of solitude are first kissed by the purple rays of religious light. They cleave the air like bold thoughts; they repose in majesty like infinite and immutable truths. From their lofty tops words lose their power to paint the revelations that come to the soul. Burning upon altars on those lofty heights, the thoughts give forth sweet incense mingled with profound prayers. Ay, on these altars lambent flames of meditations mimic the light of the life-giving sun. Ah! But there are also valleys of solitude where the sunlight never enters, where the tears of cloudy days gather into one torrent and violently score the river beds, where pale flowers struggle against the cold breath from unsearchable caverns. There are solitudes which humanity dares not enter. There is a solitude where the mind itself evanesces,--the terrible solitude of oblivion. Such a solitude was Psyche’s; and from her life all hope and joy had fled. Her very dreams were beginning to vanish. Arid anguish pressed her heart. Her ears like parched lips thirsted for words. Her eyes like homesick souls longed for the light of the sun. Her existence was immobile but living, like the silence on lips that are not dumb and yet do not speak. Oh the silence of solitary confinement! Her life was an ocean without a shore, overhung with sombre clouds. From time to time there would appear on the waters a wave both long and low. Only the ear accustomed to silence could hear that moaning note. It sounded like a voice crying, with sad, monotonous iteration, the word ‘_ob-liv-i-on_.’