Lest this mystic repose should be disturbed by any of the sights of living man, I withdrew deeper into the shades which first sheltered me. It was enough for me that there was a canopy of leaves above to shield my limbs from the casual visitations of a sky whose sapphire looked scarcely capable of a stain, and that the turf was soft for my couch. Fruits sufficient to tempt the most luxurious taste were falling round me, and the waters of the bright rivulet, scooped in the rind of citron and orange, were a draft that the epicure might envy. I was still utterly ignorant on what shore of the Mediterranean I was thrown, further than that the sun rose behind my bower and threw his western luster on the waveless expanse of sea that spread before it to the round horizon. CHAPTER XLI _The Granddaughter of Ananus_ [Sidenote: Salathiel’s Activity] But no man can be a philosopher against nature. With my strength the desire for exertion returned. My most voluptuous rest became irksome. Memory would not be restrained; the floodgates of thought opened once more, and to resist the passion for the world, I was driven to the drudgery of the hands. I gathered wood for the winter’s fuel, in the midst of days when the sun poured fire from the heavens; I attempted to build a hut, beside grottoes that a hermit would love; I trained trees and cultivated flowers where the soil threw out all that was rich in both with exhaustless prodigality. Yet no expedient would appease the passion for the absorbing business of the world. My bower lost its enchantment; the delight of lying on beds of violet, and with my eyes fixed on the heavens, wandering away in rich illusion, palled upon me; the colors of the vision had grown dim. I no longer saw shapes of beauty winging their way through the celestial azure; I heard no harmonies of spirits on the midnight winds; I followed no longer the sun, rushing on his golden chariot-wheels to lands unstained by human step, or plunged with him at eve into the depths and ranged the secret wonders of ocean. [Sidenote: The Island Prison]