of folly. Swift as the twining of serpents, vast as the growth of lianas
in a forest, are the all-encircling growths of the Plant of Desire.

"_O the Jewel in the Lotos!_"

Vain his prayer, alas! vain also his invocation! The mystic meaning of
the holy text--the sense of the Lotos, the sense of the Jewel--had
evaporated from the words, and their monotonous utterance now served
only to lend more dangerous definition to the memory that tempted and
tortured him. _O the jewel in her ear!_ What lotos-bud more dainty than
the folded flower of flesh, with its dripping of diamond-fire! Again he
saw it, and the curve of the cheek beyond, luscious to look upon as
beautiful brown fruit. How true the Two Hundred and Eighty-Fourth verse
of the Admonitions!--"So long as a man shall not have torn from his
heart even the smallest rootlet of that liana of desire which draweth
his thought toward women, even so long shall his soul remain fettered."
And there came to his mind also the Three Hundred and Forty-Fifth verse
of the same blessed book, regarding fetters:

"In bonds of rope, wise teachers have said, there is no strength; nor in
fetters of wood, nor yet in fetters of iron. Much stronger than any of
these is the fetter of _concern for the jewelled earrings of women_."

"Omniscient Gotama!" he cried,--"all-seeing Tathagata! How multiform the
Consolation of Thy Word! how marvellous Thy understanding of the human
heart! Was this also one of Thy temptations?--one of the myriad
illusions marshalled before Thee by Mara in that night when the earth
rocked as a chariot, and the sacred trembling passed from sun to sun,
from system to system, from universe to universe, from eternity to
eternity?"

_O the jewel in her ear!_ The vision would not go! Nay, each time it
hovered before his thought it seemed to take a warmer life, a fonder
look, a fairer form; to develop with his weakness; to gain force from
his enervation. He saw the eyes, large, limpid, soft, and black as a
deer's; the pearls in the dark hair, and the pearls in the pink mouth;
the lips curling to a kiss, a flower-kiss; and a fragrance seemed to
float to his senses, sweet, strange, soporific,--a perfume of youth, an
odor of woman. Rising to his feet, with strong resolve he pronounced
again the sacred invocation; and he recited the holy words of the
_Chapter of Impermanency_:

"Gazing upon the heavens and upon the earth ye must say, _These are not
permanent_. Gazing upon the