xact words
and delineations.]

"But enough of these matters; thou wilt find it difficult to enter into
such thoughts. Tell me rather what thou thinkest of our temples and
pyramids."

Croesus, after reflecting a moment, answered with a smile: "Those huge
pyramidal masses of stone seem to me creations of the boundless desert,
the gaily painted temple colonnades to be the children of the Spring;
but though the sphinxes lead up to your temple gates, and seem to point
the way into the very shrines themselves, the sloping fortress-like
walls of the Pylons, those huge isolated portals, appear as if placed
there to repel entrance. Your many-colored hieroglyphics likewise
attract the gaze, but baffle the inquiring spirit by the mystery that
lies within their characters. The images of your manifold gods are
everywhere to be seen; they crowd on our gaze, and yet who knows not
that their real is not their apparent significance? that they are mere
outward images of thoughts accessible only to the few, and, as I have
heard, almost incomprehensible in their depth? My curiosity is excited
everywhere, and my interest awakened, but my warm love of the beautiful
feels itself in no way attracted. My intellect might strain to penetrate
the secrets of your sages, but my heart and mind can never be at home in
a creed which views life as a short pilgrimage to the grave, and death
as the only true life!"

"And yet," said Amasis, "Death has for us too his terrors, and we do all
in our power to evade his grasp. Our physicians would not be celebrated
and esteemed as they are, if we did not believe that their skill could
prolong our earthly existence. This reminds me of the oculist Nebenchari
whom I sent to Susa, to the king. Does he maintain his reputation? is
the king content with him?"

"Very much so," answered Croesus. "He has been of use to many of the
blind; but the king's mother is alas! still sightless. It was Nebenchari
who first spoke to Cambyses of the charms of thy daughter Tachot. But we
deplore that he understands diseases of the eye alone. When the Princess
Atossa lay ill of fever, he was not to be induced to bestow a word of
counsel."

"That is very natural; our physicians are only permitted to treat one
part of the body. We have aurists, dentists and oculists, surgeons for
fractures of the bone, and others for internal diseases. By the ancient
priestly law a dentist is not allowed to treat a deaf man, nor a surgeon
for br