Those thoughts banished rest from my pillow. I passed day and night in a perpetual, feverish exaltation of mind; yet if I were to compute my few periods of happiness, among them would be the week when I could neither eat, drink, nor sleep, from the mere overflowing of my warlike reveries at Masada. We may well forgive the splenetic apathy and sullen scorn of life that beset the holder of power, when time or chance leaves his grasp empty. The mighty monarch; the general, on whose sword hung the balance of empires; the statesman, on whose council rose or fell the welfare of millions, sunk into the unexciting employments of common life, their genius and their fame a burden and a reproach, the source of a restless and indignant contrast between what they were and what they are; how feeble an emblem of such minds is the lion fanged or the eagle chained! We may pass by even the frivolities which so often make the world stare at the latter years of famous men. When they can no longer soar to their natural height, all beneath is equal to them; our petty wisdom is not worth their trouble. They scorn the little opinions of commonplace mankind, and follow their own tastes, contemptuously trifle and proudly play the fool. [Sidenote: Salathiel Leads an Insurrection] Before the week was done, I was at the head of a hundred thousand men; I was the champion of a great country; the leader of the most formidable insurrection that ever contended with Rome in the east; the general of an army whose fidelity and spirit were not to be surpassed on earth. Could ambition ask more? Yet there was even more, tho too solemn to be asked by human ambition. My nation was sacred; a cause above human nature was to be defended; in that cause I might at once redeem my own name from obscurity, and be the instrument of exalting the name, authority, and religion of a people, the regal people of the Sovereign of all! Constantius returned. It was in vain that I had directed my family to take refuge in the mountain country of Naphtali. My authority was for once disputed at home. Strong affection mastered fear, and swift as love could speed, I saw them enter the gates of Masada. Such meetings can come but once in a life. I was surrounded by innocent fondness, beauty most admirable, and faith that no misfortunes could shake; and I was surrounded by them in an hour when prosperity seemed laboring to lavish on me all the wishes of man. I felt, too, by the glance with which Miriam looked upon her “hero,” that I had earned a higher title to the world’s respect. Had she found me in chains, she would have shared them without a murmur. But her lofty heart rejoiced to find her husband thus vindicating his claims to the homage of mankind.