he knew too well, was impossible. A rival pretender to the empire was like
the plague of fire--as dangerous in the shape of a single spark left
unextinguished, as in that of a prosperous conflagration. But a few brief
sands yet remained to run in the emperor's hour-glass; much variety of
degradation or suffering seemed scarcely within the possibilities of his
situation, or within the compass of the time. Yet, as though Providence
had decreed that his humiliation should pass through every shape, and
speak by every expression which came home to his understanding, or was
intelligible to his senses, even in these few moments he was attacked by
hunger and thirst. No other bread could be obtained (or, perhaps, if the
emperor's presence were concealed from the household, it was not safe to
raise suspicion by calling for better) than that which was ordinarily
given to slaves, coarse, black, and, to a palate so luxurious, doubtless
disgusting. This accordingly he rejected; but a little tepid water he
drank. After which, with the haste of one who fears that he may be
prematurely interrupted, but otherwise, with all the reluctance which we
may imagine, and which his streaming tears proclaimed, he addressed
himself to the last labor in which he supposed himself to have any
interest on this earth--that of digging a grave. Measuring a space
adjusted to the proportions of his person, he inquired anxiously for any
loose fragments of marble, such as might suffice to line it. He requested
also to be furnished with wood and water, as the materials for the last
sepulchral rites. And these labors were accompanied, or continually
interrupted by tears and lamentations, or by passionate ejaculations on
the blindness of fortune, in suffering so divine an artist to be thus
violently snatched away, and on the calamitous fate of musical science,
which then stood on the brink of so dire an eclipse. In these moments he
was most truly in an _agony_, according to the original meaning of
that word; for the conflict was great between two master principles of his
nature: on the one hand, he clung with the weakness of a girl to life,