“What a true philosopher she is, my sweet Aizif!” she went on amusedly stroking the creature’s head,—­“Her feminine wit teaches her what the dull brains of men can never grasp, . . namely, that pleasures, no matter how sweet, turn to ashes and wormwood when once obtained,—­and that the only happiness in this world is the charm of desire!  There is a subject for thee, Sah-luma! ... write an immortal Ode on the mysteries, the delights, the never-ending ravishment of Desire! ... but carry not thy fancy on to desire’s fulfilment, for there thou shalt find infinite bitterness!  The soul that wilfully gratifies its dearest wish, has stripped life of its supremest joy, and stands thereafter in an emptied sphere, sorrowful and alone,—­with nothing left to hope for, nothing to look forward to, save death, the end of all ambition!”

“Nay, fair lady,”—­said Theos suddenly,—­“We who deem ourselves the children of the high gods, and the offspring of a Spirit Eternal, may surely aspire to something beyond this death, that, like a black seal, closes up the brief scroll of our merely human existence!  And to us, therefore, ambition should be ceaseless,—­ for if we master the world, there are yet more worlds to win:  and if we find one heaven, we do but accept it as a pledge of other heavens beyond it!  The aspirations of Man are limitless,—­hence his best assurance of immortality, ... else why should he perpetually long for things that here are impossible of attainment? ... things that like faint, floating clouds rimmed with light, suggest without declaring a glory unperceived?”

Lysia looked at him steadfastly, an under-gleam of malice shining in her slumbrous eyes.

“Why? ...  Because, good sir, the gods love mirth! ... and the wanton Immortals are never more thoroughly diverted, than, when leaning downward from their clear empyrean, they behold Man, their Insect-Toy, arrogating to himself a share in their imperishable Essence!  To keep up the Eternal Jest, they torture him with vain delusions, and prick him on with hopes never to be realized; aye! and the whole vast Heaven may well shake with thunderous laughter at the pride with which he doth put forth his puny claim to be elected to another and fairer state of existence!  What hath he done? ... what does he do, to merit a future life? ...  Are his deeds so noble? ... is his wisdom so great? ... is his mind so stainless?  He, the oppressor of all Nature and of his brother man,—­he, the insolent, self-opinionated tyrant, yet bound slave of the Earth on which he dwells ... why should he live again and carry his ignoble presence into the splendors of an Eternity too vast for him to comprehend? ..Nay, nay! ...  I perceive thou art one of the credulous, for whom a reasonless worship to an unproved Deity is, for the sake of state-policy, maintained, . .  I had thought thee wiser! ... but no matter! thou shalt pay thy vows to the shrine of Nagaya to-morrow, and see with what glorious pomp and panoply we impose on the faithful, who like thee believe in their own deathless and divinely constituted natures, and enjoy to the full the grand Conceit that persuades them of their right to Immortality!”