be so," I answered; "but if the loved one prove a broken reed to
pierce us, or if the love be loved in vain--what then? Shall a man grave
his sorrows upon a stone when he hath but need to write them on
the water? Nay, oh _She_, I will live my day, and grow old with my
generation, and die my appointed death, and be forgotten. For I do hope
for an immortality to which the little span that perchance thou canst
confer will be but as a finger's length laid against the measure of the
great world; and, mark this! the immortality to which I look, and which
my faith doth promise me, shall be free from the bonds that here must
tie my spirit down. For, while the flesh endures, sorrow and evil and
the scorpion whips of sin must endure also; but when the flesh hath
fallen from us, then shall the spirit shine forth clad in the brightness
of eternal good, and for its common air shall breathe so rare an ether
of most noble thoughts that the highest aspiration of our manhood, or
the purest incense of a maiden's prayer, would prove too earthly gross
to float therein."

"Thou lookest high," answered Ayesha, with a little laugh, "and speakest
clearly as a trumpet and with no uncertain sound. And yet methinks that
but now didst thou talk of 'that Unknown' from which the winding-sheet
doth curtain us. But perchance, thou seest with the eye of Faith, gazing
on that brightness, that is to be, through the painted-glass of thy
imagination. Strange are the pictures of the future that mankind can
thus draw with this brush of faith and this many-coloured pigment of
imagination! Strange, too, that no one of them doth agree with another!
I could tell thee--but there, what is the use? why rob a fool of his
bauble? Let it pass, and I pray, oh Holly, that when thou dost feel old
age creeping slowly toward thyself, and the confusion of senility making
havoc in thy brain, thou mayest not bitterly regret that thou didst cast
away the imperial boon I would have given to thee. But so it hath ever
been; man can never be content with that which his hand can pluck. If
a lamp be in his reach to light him through the darkness, he must needs
cast it down because it is no star. Happiness danceth ever apace before
him, like the marsh-fires in the swamps, and he must catch the fire, and
he must hold the star! Beauty is naught to him, because there are lips
more honey-sweet; and wealth is naught, because others can weigh him
down with heavier shekels; and fame is nau