It would have been interesting, no doubt, to have dined with him
in Paris; to have quarried lions in their African fens; to have
heard archaic hymns ripple through the rushes of the Nile; to have
lounged in the Academe, to have scaled Parnassus, and sailed the
AEgean Sea; but, a history and an arm-chair aiding, the traveller
has but to close his eyes and the past returns. Without disturbing
so much as a shirt-box, he may repeat that promenade. Triremes
have foundered; litters are out of date; painted elephants are no
more; the sky has changed, climates with it; there are colors, as
there are arts, that have gone from us forever; there are desolate
plains, where green and yellow was; the shriek of steam where gods
have strayed; advertisements in sacred groves; Baedekers in ruins
that never heard an atheist's voice; solitudes where there were
splendors; the snarl of jackals where once were birds and bees--
yet, history and the arm-chair aiding, it all returns. Any
traveller may follow in Hadrian's steps; he is stayed but once--
on the threshold of the Temple of Eleusis. It is there history
gropes, impotent and blind, and it is there the interest of that
journey culminated.
Beyond the episode connected with Antinous, Hadrian's journey was
marked by another, one which occurred in Judaea. Both were
infamous, no doubt, but, what is more to the point, both mark the
working of the poison in the purple that he bore.
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