merciless tyranny.

"Good Aizif!" said Lysia then, in that languid, soft voice, that
while so sweet, suggested hidden treachery.. "Gentle fondling! ...
Thou hast fairly earned thy reward! ... Here! ... take it!"--and
unclosing her roseate palm, she showed the desired bonne-bouche,
and offered it with a pretty coaxing air,--but the tigress now
refused to touch it, and lay as still as an animal of painted
stone.

"What a true philosopher she is, my sweet Aizif!" she went on
amusedly stroking the creature's head,--"Her feminine wit teaches
her what the dull brains of men can never grasp, . . namely, that
pleasures, no matter how sweet, turn to ashes and wormwood when
once obtained,--and that the only happiness in this world is the
charm of DESIRE! There is a subject for thee, Sah-luma! ... write
an immortal Ode on the mysteries, the delights, the never-ending
ravishment of Desire! ... but carry not thy fancy on to desire's
fulfilment, for there thou shalt find infinite bitterness! The
soul that wilfully gratifies its dearest wish, has stripped life
of its supremest joy, and stands thereafter in an emptied sphere,
sorrowful and alone,--with nothing left to hope for, nothing to
look forward to, save death, the end of all ambition!"

"Nay, fair lady,"--said Theos suddenly,--"We who deem ourselves
the children of the high gods, and the offspring of a Spirit
Eternal, may surely aspire to something beyond this death, that,
like a black seal, closes up the brief scroll of our merely human
existence! And to us, therefore, ambition should be ceaseless,--
for if we master the world, there are yet more worlds to win: and