arned men have made their way to
heaven by imitating this music; as have others also by the excellence of
their studies. Filled with this sound the sense of hearing has failed
among men. What sense is duller? It is as when the Nile falls down to
her cataracts, and the nations around, astonished by the tumult, become
deaf.'

* * * * *

"'Then,' said Africanus, 'look and see how small are the habitations of
men, how grand are those of the angels of light. What fame can you
expect from men, or what glory? You see how they live in mean places--in
small spots, lonely amid vast solitudes, and that they who inhabit them
dwell so isolated that nothing can pass between them. Can you expect
glory from them?

"'You behold this earth surrounded by zones. You see two of them, frozen
from their poles, have been made solid with everlasting ice; and how the
centre realm between them has been scorched by the sun's rays. Two,
however, are fit for life. They who inhabit the southern, whose
footsteps are opposed to ours, are a race of whom we know nothing. But
see how small a part of this little earth is inhabited by us who are
turned toward the north. For all the earth which you inhabit, wide and
narrow, is but a small island surrounded by that sea which you call the
great Atlantic Ocean--which, however large as you deem it, how small it
is! Has your name or has mine been able, over this small morsel of the
earth's surface, to ascend Mount Caucasus or to cross the Ganges? Who in
the regions of the rising or setting sun has heard of our fame? Cut off
these regions, distant but a hand's breadth, and see within what narrow
borders will your reputation be spread! They who speak of you--for how
short a time will their voices be heard?

"'Grant that man, unenvious, shall wish to hand down your fame to future
ages, still there will come those storms of nature. The earth will be
immersed in water and scorched with fire; a doom which in the course of
ages must happen, and will deny to you any lasting glory. Will you be
content that they who are to come only shall hear of you, when to those
crowds of better men who have passed away your name shall be as nothing?

"'And remember too that no man's renown shall reach the duration of a
year. Men call that space a year which they measure by the return of a
single star to its old place. But when all the stars shall have come
back, and shall have made their course acros