d under fleshless ribs in the place once occupied perhaps by
a soul, are human thought; exprest in the science of signs, and
transmitted by the help of an art we had lost, but have found again in
the sepulchers of the East--the art of preserving the remains of the
dead from the outrages of corruption--the greatest power in the
universe. O Lelia, deny the youth of the world if you can, when you
see it stop in artless ignorance before the lessons of the past, and
begin to live on the forgotten ruins of an unknown world."

"Knowledge is not power," replied Lelia. "Learning over again is not
progress; seeing is not living. Who will give us back the power to
act, and above all, the art of enjoying and retaining? We have gone
too far forward now to retreat. What was merely repose for eclipsed
civilizations will be death for our tired-out one; the rejuvenated
nations of the East will come and intoxicate themselves with the
poison we have poured on our soil. The bold barbarian drinkers may
perhaps prolong the orgy of luxury a few hours into the night of time;
but the venom we shall bequeath them will promptly be mortal for them,
as it was for us, and all will drop back into blackness....

"In fact, Stenio, do you not see that the sun is withdrawing from us?
Is not the earth, wearied in its journey, noticeably drifting toward
darkness and chaos? Is your blood so young and ardent as not to feel
the touch of that chill spread like a pall over this planet abandoned
to Fate, the most powerful of the gods? Oh, the cold! that penetrating
pain driving sharp needles into every pore. That curst breath that
withers flowers and burns them like fire; that pain at once physical
and mental, which invades both soul and body, penetrates to the depths
of thought, and paralyzes mind as well as blood! Cold--the sinister
demon who grazes the universe with his damp wing, and breathes
pestilence on bewildered nations! Cold, tarnishing everything,
unrolling its gray and nebulous veil over the sky's rich tints, the
waters' reflections, the hearts of flowers, and the cheeks of maidens!
Cold, that casts its white winding-sheet over fields and woods and
lakes, even over the fur and feathers of animals! Cold, that discolors
all in the material as well as in the intellectual world; not only the
coats of bears and hares on the shores of Archangel, but the very
pleasures of man and the character of his habits in the spots it
approaches! You surely see that e