t that they bestow on kings and heroes? Is
this the fruit of so much toil and danger and care?" Enraged and
disappointed, he threw it on the ground. "Great king," said one of the
learned men who were present, "do not despise this gift. Contemptible as
it may appear in thine eyes, it yet possesses some extraordinary
qualities, of which thou mayest soon be convinced, if thou wilt but
cause it to be weighed against gold or silver." Alexander ordered this
to be done. A pair of scales were brought. The skull was placed in one,
a quantity of gold in the other; when, to the astonishment of the
beholders, the skull over-balanced the gold. More gold was added, yet
still the skull preponderated. In short, the more gold there was put in
the one scale the lower sank that which contained the skull. "Strange,"
exclaimed Alexander, "that so small a portion of matter should outweigh
so large a mass of gold! Is there nothing that will counterpoise it?"
"Yes," answered the philosophers, "a very little matter will do it."
They then took some earth and covered the skull with it, when
immediately down went the gold, and the opposite scale ascended. "This
is very extraordinary," said Alexander, astonished. "Can you explain
this phenomenon?" "Great king," said the sages, "this fragment is the
socket of a human eye, which, though small in compass, is yet unbounded
in its desires. The more it has, the more it craves. Neither gold nor
silver nor any other earthly possession can ever satisfy it. But when it
is once laid in the grave and covered with a little earth, there is an
end to its lust and ambition."

* * * * *

Shakspeare's well-known masterly description of the Seven Ages of Man,
which he puts into the mouth of the melancholy Jaques (_As You Like It_,
ii, 7), was anticipated by Rabbi Simon, the son of Eliezer, in this
Talmudic description of

_The Seven Stages of Human Life._

Seven times in one verse did the author of Ecclesiastes make use of the
word _vanity_, in allusion to the seven stages of human life.[95]

[95] Eccles., i, 2. The word Vanity (remarks Hurwitz, the
translator) occurs twice in the plural, which the Rabbi
considered as equivalent to four, and three times in the
singular, making altogether _seven_.

The first commences in the first year of human existence, when the
_infant_ lies like a king on a soft couch, with numerous attendants
about him, all ready