, and whatever is strutting through this hour, is
added to the heaped crypts wherein lie all that was worthiest in the old
time.

"Now there is garnered such might and loveliness and wisdom as human
thinking cannot conceive of. An emperor is made much of here when he has
conquered some part of the world, but Death makes nothing of a world of
emperors: and in Death's crowded store-rooms nobody bothers to estimate
within a thousand thousand of how many emperors, and tzars and popes and
pharaohs and sultans, that in their day were adored as omnipotent, are
there assembled pellmell, along with all that was worthiest in the old
time.

"As touches loveliness, not even Helen's beauty is distinguishable among
those multitudinous millions of resplendent queens whom one finds
yonder. Here are many pretty women, here above all is Freydis, so I do
not complain. But yonder is deep-bosomed Semiramis, and fair-tressed
Guenevere, and Magdalene that loved Christ, and Europa, the bull's
laughing bride, and Lilith, whose hot kiss made Satan ardent, and a many
other ladies by whose dear beauty's might were shaped the songs which
cause us to remember all that was worthiest in the old time.

"As wisdom goes, here we have prudent men of business able to add two
and two together, and justice may be out of hand distinguished from
injustice by an impanelment of the nearest twelve fools. Here we have
many Helmases a-cackling wisely under a goose-feather. But yonder are
Cato and Nestor and Merlin and Socrates, Abelard sits with Aristotle
there, and the seven sages confer with the major prophets, and yonder is
all that was worthiest in the old time.

"All, all, are put away in Death's heaped store-rooms, so safely put
away that opulent Death may well grin scornfully at Life: for everything
belongs to Death, and Life is only a mendicant scratching at his sores
so long as Death permits it. No, Freydis, there can be no bribing Death!
For what bribe anywhere has Life to offer which Death has not already
lying disregarded in a thousand dusty coffers along with all that was
worthiest in the old time?"

Freydis replied: "One thing alone. Yes, Manuel, there is one thing only
which all Death's ravishings have never taken from Life, and which has
not ever entered into Death's keeping. It is through weighing this fact,
and through doing what else is requisite, that the very bold may bring
back the dead to live again in the warm flesh."

"Well, but I ha