Vesuvius was ten times as far; but the eye swept clear down the verdant coast toward Surrentum to the southward.

At her feet was the sea,--the Italian, Neapolitan sea,--dancing, sparkling, dimpling from the first flush of morning to the last glint of the fading western clouds at eve.

The azure above glowed with living brightness, and by night the stars and planets burned and twinkled down from a crystalline void, through which the unfettered soul might soar and soar, swimming onward through the sweet darkness of the infinite.
And there were pleasures enough for Cornelia if she would join therein.

Lentulus had ordered his freedmen not to deny her amusements; anything, in fact, that would divert her from her morbid infatuation for Drusus.

The consul-designate had indeed reached the conclusion that his niece was suffering some serious mental derangement, or she would not thus continue to pursue a profitless passion, obviously impossible of fulfilment.