he most adorable of the images that nature has ever thrown--for some
unknown reasons--on the face of this deceptive world!"

Whilst he spoke, deep wrath had been brewing in the monk's heart, and it
now broke forth in imprecations.

"Avaunt, cursed wretch! I scorn thee and hate thee. Go, child of hell, a
thousand times worse than those poor lost ones who just now threw stones
and insults at me! They knew not what they did, and the grace of God,
which I implored for them, may some day descend into their hearts. But
thou, detestable Nicias, thou art but a perfidious venom and a bitter
poison. Thy mouth breathes despair and death. One of thy smiles contains
more blasphemy than issues in a century from the smoking lips of Satan.
Avaunt, backslider!"

Nicias looked at him.

"Farewell, my brother," he said, "and may you preserve until your life's
end your store of faith, hate, and love. Farewell, Thais! It is in vain
that you will forget me, because I shall ever remember you."

On quitting them he walked thoughtfully through the winding streets in
the vicinity of the great cemetery of Alexandria, which are peopled
by the makers of funeral urns. Their shops were full of clay figures
painted in bright colours and representing gods and goddesses, mimes,
women, winged sprites, &c., such as were usually buried with the dead.
He fancied that perhaps some of the little images which he saw there
might be the companions of his eternal sleep; and it seemed to him that
a little Eros, with its tunic tucked up, laughed at him mockingly. He
looked forward to his death, and the idea was painful to him. To cure
his sadness he tried to philosophise, and reasoned thus--

"Assuredly," he said to himself, "time has no reality. It is a simple
illusion of our minds. Then, if it does not exist, how can it bring
death to me? Does that mean that I shall live for ever? No, but I
conclude therefrom that my death is, always has been, as it always will
be. I do not feel it yet, but it is in me, and I ought not to fear it,
for it would be folly to dread the coming of that which has arrived. It
exists, like the last page of a book I read and have not finished."

This argument occupied him all the rest of the way, but without making
him more cheerful; and his mind was filled with dismal thoughts when he
arrived at the door of his house and heard the merry laughter of Crobyle
and Myrtale, who were playing at tennis whilst they were waiting for
him.