“They would be precisely the same as before”—­rejoined the other complacently—­“Only we should have learned to accept them merely as the means whereby to sustain the impression that we live,—­an impression which would always be agreeable, however delusive!”

Theos shrugged his shoulders.  “You possess a peculiarly constituted mind, sir!”—­he said—­“And I congratulate you on the skill you display in following out a somewhat puzzling investigation to almost its last hand’s-breadth of a conclusion,—­ but.. pardon me,—­I should scarcely think the discussion of such debatable theories conducive to happiness!”

“Happiness!".. and the scientist smiled scornfully,—­“’Tis a fool’s term, and designates a state of being that can only pertain to foolishness!  Show me a perfectly happy man, and I will show you an ignorant witling, light-headed, hardhearted, and of a most powerfully good digestion!  Many such there be now wantoning among us, and the head and chief of them all is perhaps the most popular numskull in Al-Kyris, . . the Poet,—­bah! ... let us say the braying Jack-ass in office,—­the laurelled Sah-luma!”

Theos gave an indignant start,—­the hot color flushed his brows, . . then he restrained himself by an effort.

“Control the fashion of your speech, I pray you, sir!” he said, with excessive haughtiness—­“The noble Laureate is my friend and host,—­I suffer no man to use his name unworthily in my presence!”

The sage drew back, and spread out his hands in a pacifying manner.

’Oh, I crave your pardon, good stranger!”—­he murmured, with a kind of apologetic satire in his acrid voice,—­“I crave it most abjectly!  Yet to somewhat excuse the hastiness of my words, I would explain that a contempt for poets and poetry is now universal among persons of profound enlightenment and practical knowledge...”

“I am aware of it!” interrupted Theos swiftly and with passion—­“I am aware that so-called ‘wise’ men, rooted in narrow prejudice, with a smattering of even narrower logic, presume, out of their immeasurable littleness, to decry and make mock of the truly great, who, thanks to God’s unpurchasable gift of inspiration, can do without the study of books or the teaching of pedants,—­who flare through the world flame-winged and full of song, like angels passing heavenward,—­and whose voices, rich with music, not only sanctify the by-gone ages, but penetrate with echoing, undying sweetness the ages still to come!  Contempt for poets!—­Aye, ’tis common!—­the petty, boastful pedagogues of surface learning ever look askance on these kings in exile, these emperors masked, these gods disguised! ... but humiliated, condemned, or rejected, they are still the supreme rulers of the human heart,—­and a Love-Ode chanted in the Long-Ago by one such fire-lipped minstrel outlasts the history of many kingdoms!”

He spoke with rapid, almost unconscious fervor, and as he ended raised one hand with an enthusiastic gesture toward the now brilliant sapphire sky and glowing sun.  The scientist looked at him furtively and smiled,—­a bland, expostulatory smile.