iversions. I should like once more to
drown my remembrances.'

"I bade him have courage, for he was in the pains of birth. The old
never lets out the new without pain and struggle, but when the new
is born it is infinitely worthy. And my new friend was comforted. We
spent many days upon the road, looking at beauty, conversing with one
another, worshipping and marvelling. Along the country paths flowers
looked up, and beautiful suns looked out of strange skies. Often
it seemed we had been together upon the same road a thousand years
before. Was it a remembrance of the time before my entering into the
coach? The flowers by the roadside tried to whisper a word of the
answer to my question. It seemed that we were surrounded by mysteries
just about to reveal themselves. Or, anon, it seemed as if we had
missed our chance, as if an unseen procession had just filed by and we
had not distinguished it.

"My friend was leaving behind all his idols. We sat upon a ridge
together, and looked back upon the valley and the city which we had
left. There was what my soul abhorred, and what I feared his soul
might be too weak to face--the kaleidoscope of mean colours turning
in the city, tickling our senses, striving to bind our souls and to
mesmerise. Some colours would have drawn our tears, some would have
persuaded smiles over our lips. Combinations of colours, groupings,
subtle movements and shapings sought to interest and absorb our
intellects.

"'Behold,' said I. 'In the city which calls itself the world, the
townsmen are casting up dice! Is it possible we shall be stricken with
woe, or immensely uplifted in joy because of the falling of a die? Oh
world too sordid to be opposed to us! Oh world too poor to be used by
us! Is not the world's place under our feet, for it is of earth and we
of spirit?'

"But my friend was not with me. He wavered as if intoxicated, and
wished to return to the city. 'Oh glorious world,' said he, and sighed
himself towards the gates we had left.

"Then seeing the brightness of my face, which just then reflected a
great brightness in the sky, and remembering that his pain was only a
bridge into the new, he gained possession of himself and turned his
eyes away from the town.

"'More than my old self and its weak flesh do I value the new young
life that is to be,' said he. 'Though I am a man and a creature of
pleasure, I am become as a woman that bears children. For the time is
coming when I shall give