“For the past several years, since shortly after my arrival upon this island of Pandateria, it has been my habit to arise before dawn and to observe the first glimmer of light in the east. It has become nearly a ritual, this early vigil; I sit without moving at an eastern window, and measure the light as it grows from gray to yellow to orange and red, and becomes at last no color but an unimaginable illumination upon the world. After the light has filled my room, I spend the morning hours reading one or another of those books from the library that I was allowed to bring with me here from Rome. The indulgence of my library was one of the few allowed me; yet of all that might have been, it is the one that has made this exile the most nearly endurable. For I have returned to that learning which I abandoned many years ago, and it is likely that I should not have done so had not I been condemned to this loneliness; I sometimes can almost believe that the world in seeking to punish me has done me a service it cannot imagine.
It has occurred to me that this early vigil and this study is a regimen that I became used to many years ago, when I was little more than a child…”
(‘II. The
Journal of Julia, Pandateria (A.D. 4)’, ‘Augustus’ by John Williams, 1972)
'Morning Sun', 1952 by Edward Hopper
(Edward Hopper's wife, Josephine N. Hopper, served as his model)