Whether such medicaments are serviceable to the soul is
problematic. Tiberius had other drugs on the ivory shelves--magic
preparations that transported him to fabulous fields. There was a
work by Hecataesus, with which he could visit Hyperborea, that
land where happiness was a birthright, inalienable at that; yet a
happiness so sweet that it must have been cloying; for the people
who enjoyed it, and with it the appanage of limitless life, killed
themselves from sheer ennui. Theopompus disclosed to him a
stranger vista--a continent beyond the ocean--one where there were
immense cities, and where two rivers flowed--the River of Pleasure
and the River of Pain. With Iambulus he discovered the Fortunate
Isles, where there were men with elastic bones, bifurcated
tongues; men who never married, who worshipped the sun, whose life
was an uninterrupted delight, and who, when overtaken by age, lay
on a perfumed grass that produced a voluptuous death. Evhemerus, a
terrible atheist, whose Sacred History the early bishops wielded
against polytheism until they discovered it was double-edged, took
him to Panchaia, an island where incense grew; where property was
held in common; where there was but one law--Justice, yet a
justice different from our own, one which Hugo must have
intercepted when he made an entrancing yet enigmatical apparition
exclaim:
"Tu me crois la Justice, je suis la Pitie.
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