He caused himself to be required by people who could serve him; feared by such as could injure.

Not that he went out of the way to secure his end, or risked the expense of a plot.

He did the work as easily as he ate his daily bread.
Adrian was an epicurean; one whom Epicurus would have scourged out of his garden, certainly: an epicurean of our modern notions.

To satisfy his appetites without rashly staking his character, was the wise youth's problem for life.

He had no intimates except Gibbon and Horace, and the society of these fine aristocrats of literature helped him to accept humanity as it had been, and was; a supreme ironic procession, with laughter of Gods in the background.