It had been arranged that one of my ships should follow three weeks after my departure from Gades; and on my arrival at lazy Naples, I had intended to wait for it, consequently I had remained there for three weeks and a few days, and the other ship not coming by that time I continued my voyage to Brundusium. There again I waited, anxious for news, and at last reluctantly put out to sea without it. It arrived at Corinth fourteen days after I did, and brought me a letter from my nephew, but none from my wife. In an agony of doubt I opened it, and read that my wife and child had died of a fever which had afflicted them a few days after my departure. First my son had died, a boy little more than three years old; and my wife, after lingering some time, followed him. I had moved into my own house, and was alone. Sending a messenger to my agent I bade him see to all things; and told him that I wished to be left undisturbed. The words of the Master came to me: "Nam iam non domus accipiet te læta neque uxor Optima, nec dulces occurrent oscula nati Præripere, et tacita pectus dulcedine tangent." It seemed to me that the peace and tranquillity of my home, the sole aim of my life, having been shrivelled up like unsubstantial things, vanished like dreams, life had thrown me, too, aside and left me stranded, a piece of wreckage, upon this alien shore. For many days I sat alone in my sumptuous house, and the statues of the gods, blithe Greek things, which I had bought to furnish it, and for transhipment to the new home which I had meant to make at Rome, smiled at my unavailing tears. Then one morning my slaves admitted a young boy to my presence. "Caius bids me tell you that Paul is in Corinth," he said. "I shall go," I answered. After he had left me, I repented. Why should I choose to frequent the Jews and miracle-mongers of Corinth, who swarmed there on the way to Rome from every part of the East, astrologers, and sellers of love-potions, poisoners, and go-betweens? But the words rose up in my mind: "God chose the foolish things of the world, that he might put to shame them that are wise:" and I wished to be ashamed. In my weakness and grief my hands went forth and groped in the darkness, seeking the hands of those who had also suffered, seeking for the little familiar, common-place things, that twine themselves round our being and are the mainstays of life. My abandonment of life in my grief had been so complete, that but for the message which came to me from Caius, I might have drifted towards self-destruction, merely because of the sullen inertia, which followed after the force of the blow had been spent. Philosophy, religion, discipline, every vain convention which we imagine may buttress our will in moments of great spiritual weakness, fell away from me like garments, and the only thing remaining was a sense of human sympathy, a craving for human consolation.