Skip to main content

Marguerite Yourcenar: Memoir of Hadrian, (1951)

New York Times bio of Marguerite Yourcenar.

'Memoirs of Hadrian', last paragraph:

"Little soul, gentle and drifting, guest and companion of my body, now you will dwell below in pallid places, stark and bare; there you will abandon your play of yore. But one moment still, let us gaze together on these familiar shores, on these objects which doubtless we shall not see again.... Let us try, if we can, to enter into death with open eyes."