all cling firmly to this belief. Sakyamoum Gautama Buddha,
the son and heir of a mighty monarch, penetrated with the conviction
of the misery of life, left his throne, embraced a life of voluntary
poverty, want, and misery, so that he might find his way to a better
state--the end before him being this, that he might ultimately escape
from the curse of existence. He lived till old age, gained innumerable
followers, and left to them as a solemn legacy the maxim that not to
exist is better than to exist; that death is better than life. Since
his day millions of his followers have upheld his principles and lived
his life. Even among the joyous Greeks we find this feeling at times
bursting forth it comes when we least expect it, and not even a
Kosekin poet could express this view more forcibly than Sophocles in
the OEdipus at Colonus:

"'Not to be born surpasses every lot;
And the next best lot by far, when one is born
Is to go back whence he came as soon as possible;
For while youth is present bringing vain follies,
What woes does it not have, what ills does it not bear--
Murders, factions, strife, war, envy,
But the extreme of misery is attained by loathsome old age--
Old age, strengthless, unsociable, friendless,
Where all evils upon evils dwell together.'"

"I'll give you the words of a later poet," said Melick, "who takes
a different view of the case. I think I'll sing them, with your
permission."

Melick swallowed a glass of wine and then sang the following:

"'They may rail at this life: from the hour I began it
I found it a life full of kindness and bliss,
And until they can show me some happier planet,
More social and bright, I'll content me with this.
As long as the world has such lips and such eyes
As before me this moment enraptured I see,
They may say what they will of their orbs in the skies,
But this earth is the planet for you, love, and me.'

"What a pity it is," continued Melick, "that the writer of this
manuscript had not the philological, theological, sociological,
geological, palaeological, ontological, ornithological, and all the
other logical attainments of yourself and the doctor! He could then
have given us a complete view of the nature of the Kosekin, morally
and physically; he could have treated of the geology of the soil, the
ethnology of the people, and could have unfolded before us a full and
comprehensive view of t