Yet, although I feel that I shall never live to see them
auctioned, the very thought of parting with them cuts me to the quick. I
am almost in tears to think of it. I love every piece I own. I hate to
think I must either live to see them sold or die and leave them. I cannot
be with them enough of my time. I could spend all my waking hours enjoying
their loveliness and my luck in owning them."
I thought this condition of mind positively unhealthy and consulted Galen.
"You are right," he said, "and you are wrong too. Your master is badly
shaken by the horrors of this appalling year, but he is not deranged nor,
at this present time, in any more danger of derangement than most of the
senators and nobles with whom he associates. Yet you are correct in being
uneasy. Don't antagonize him, but do all you can, tactfully and
unobtrusively, to keep him away from those jewels and to get him out to
the Baths of Titus or to dinners. Do your utmost to induce him to
entertain. A jolly dinner with a bevy of jovial guests will be the very
medicine for him."
Had I been a Greek I could not have been, more wily or more successful. He
spent less time with his gems, went out to the Baths oftener, accepted
some dinner invitations and gave a few dinners.
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