"I love to sit here on tranquil evenings," said Serenus; "and listen for the cry of the halcyon, or the heavy plunge of a dolphin, drifting up through the delicious air from the bay."
He unrolled his manuscript, and presently began to read, in a smooth, low voice:--
"When Venus rose out of the foam and froth of Ocean it was upon the prow of a Phœnician trader, that carried her into every part of the known world; and when her worship fell away and her votaries became few, the cult of Venus Pandemos still flourished at Corinth, and her temples there were served by a thousand priestesses. There she loves to have her abiding place, where she can look out upon two seas, and watch the sail-winged ships bringing her tribute from distant lands; she is the lure, beckoning them over the pathless sea. The port Cenchrea is surrounded by green hills and pine forests, and through the stone-pines at dawn the sun sends his first level rays, so that their trunks show black against the gold. The streets are infested with traders of all nations; Jews and Syrians swarm there; child courtesans with delicate and innocent faces pluck strangers by the sleeve and smile; the quays and streets are crowded with the booths of merchants and moneychangers, whose gay awnings striped red or yellow glare vividly in the sunlight; and doves are everywhere, fluttering about the streets, fanning the air with a soft pulse of wings, alighting upon awnings and architraves to preen their feathers, running swiftly among the passengers on their pink feet and cooing, cooing softly like the young girls who touch men on the sleeve, the very gentle, insinuating whisper of Aphrodite.
"I arrived at Corinth in the beginning of December, and remember well the gaiety, animation, and bustle of the scene as I watched it from the steps of the temple; for a long time I fed my sight upon that busy, amorous, wholly pleasure-loving crowd, until, at last, the red and yellow awnings so hot and vivid even in the winter sunlight, the perpetual passing to and fro of men and women, the continual change and motion of colours, and the humming noise, all combined in a curious hypnotic effect upon my nerves. What had seemed the very epitome of life became a mere stage-scene, and then again nothing but the dance of motes in a sunbeam.