Almost completely, be it repeated; for there was invariably a sufficient sense of knowing he was only dreaming to prevent entire abandonment to the raw emotion. Kennaston preferred it thus. He preferred in this more comely way to play with human passions, rather than, as seemed the vulgar use, to consent to become their battered play-thing. It pleased him, too, to be able to have done with such sensations and emotions as did not interest him; for he had merely to touch Ettarre, and the dream ended. In this fashion he would very often terminate an existence which was becoming distasteful—resorting debonairly to this sort of suicide, and thus dismissing an era’s social orderings and its great people as toys that, played with, had failed to amuse Felix Kennaston. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ _Book Fourth_ ══════════════════════ “_But there were dreams to sell Ill didst thou buy: Life is a dream, they tell, Waking to die. Dreaming a dream to prize, Is wishing ghosts to rise; And, if I had the spell To call the buried—well, Which one would I?_” ══════════════════════ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I Economic Considerations of Piety AS has been said, Kennaston read much curious matter in his dead uncle’s library.... But most books—even Felix Kennaston’s own little books—did not seem now to be affairs of heavy moment. Once abed, clasping his gleaming broken bit of metal, and the truthful history of all that had ever happened was, instead, Kennaston’s library. It was not his to choose from what volume or on which page thereof he would read; accident, as it seemed, decided that; but the chance-opened page lay unblurred before him, and he saw it with a clarity denied to other men of his generation. * * * * * Kennaston stood by the couch of Tiberius Cæsar as he lay ill at Capreæ. Beside him hung a memorable painting, by Parrhasius, which represented the virgin Atalanta in the act of according very curious assuagements to her lover’s ardor. Charicles, a Greek physician, was telling the Emperor of a new religious sect that had arisen in Judea, and of the persecutions these disciples of Christus were enduring. Old Cæsar listened, made grave clucking noises of disapproval.