Is the sky altogether overcast ?" "No my lord, it is blue over the sea, but towards the south the black clouds are gathering." "Towards the south ?" said Hadrian thoughtfully.

"Any thing serious can hardly threaten us from that quarter .-- But it comes, it is near, it is upon us before we suspect it." "You sat up too long, and that has put you out of tune." "Out of tune ?" muttered Hadrian to himself.

"And what is tune?
That subtle harmony or discord is a condition which masters all the emotions of the soul at once; and not without reason--to-day my heart is paralyzed with anxiety." "Then you have seen evil signs in the heavens ?" "Direful signs!" "You wise men believe in the stars," replied Antinous.

"No doubt you are right, but my weak head cannot understand what their regular courses have to do with my inconstant wanderings." "Grow gray," replied the Emperor, "learn to comprehend the universe with your intellect, and not till then speak of these things for not till then will you discern that every atom of things created, and the greatest as well as the least, is in the closest bonds with every other; that all work together, and each depends on all.

All that is or ever will be in nature, all that we men feel, think or do, all is dependent on eternal and immutable causes; and these causes have each their Daimon who interposes between us and the divinity and is symbolized in golden characters on the vault of heaven.