grape by the brawny feet of the vintagers. And those full ears of corn!
They gleam golden yellow, and will yield us snow-white meal when they
are ground, and yet they grew from a rotting seed. Lately you were
praising to me the beauty of the great Hall of Columns nearly completed
in the Temple of Amon over yonder in Thebes.

[Begun by Rameses I. continued by Seti I., completed by Rameses II.
The remains of this immense hall, with its 134 columns, have not
their equal in the world.]

How posterity will admire it! I saw that Hall arise. There lay masses of
freestone in wild confusion, dust in heaps that took away my breath,
and three months since I was sent over there, because above a hundred
workmen engaged in stone-polishing under the burning sun had been beaten
to death. Were I a poet like you, I would show you a hundred similar
pictures, in which you would not find much beauty. In the meantime,
we have enough to do in observing the existing order of things, and
investigating the laws by which it is governed."

"I have never clearly understood your efforts, and have difficulty in
comprehending why you did not turn to the science of the haruspices,"
said Pentaur. "Do you then believe that the changing, and--owing to the
conditions by which they are surrounded--the dependent life of plants
and animals is governed by law, rule, and numbers like the movement of
the stars?"

"What a question! Is the strong and mighty hand, which compels yonder
heavenly bodies to roll onward in their carefully-appointed orbits, not
delicate enough to prescribe the conditions of the flight of the bird,
and the beating of the human heart?"

"There we are again with the heart," said the poet smiling, "are you any
nearer your aim?"

The physician became very grave. "Perhaps tomorrow even," he said, "I
may have what I need. You have your palette there with red and black
color, and a writing reed. May I use this sheet of papyrus?"

"Of course; but first tell me.... "

"Do not ask; you would not approve of my scheme, and there would only be
a fresh dispute."

"I think," said the poet, laying his hand on his friend's shoulder,
"that we have no reason to fear disputes. So far they have been the
cement, the refreshing dew of our friendship."

"So long as they treated of ideas only, and not of deeds."

"You intend to get possession of a human heart!" cried the poet. "Think
of what you are doing! The heart is the vessel of that eff