"«What do you mean?»«I've always thought, Julian, that you suffer from the same malady as your enemies, the Christians!»«What malady?»«Faith in miracles.»Julian shook his head.«If there be neither miracles nor gods my whole life is a madness!...No, we won't speak of that. And do not be too hard upon me on account of my love of ancient ceremonies. I scarcely can explain it to you. The old simple things stir tears in me; and I love the evening more than the morning, autumn better than spring. I love all that is fleeting! ... Even the perfume of flowers that have faded. ... What would you have, my friend? The gods shaped me so!... That pleasant melancholy, that golden faery twilight, are necessary to me. In the depth of antiquity there is to me something ineffably gracious and fair such as I find in no other region - the shining of sunset on marble mellowed by time. Do not rob me of the mad love of what is no more. Everything that has been, is fairer than the thing that is! Remembrance has more power over my soul than hope...»"
Dmitri Merejkowski, The Death of The Gods, trad. Herbert Trench, London: Constable & Company Limited, 1926, p. 283.
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