recalling the beautiful allegory. How often we have argued over its
meaning! If we continued the discussion, perhaps it might pleasantly
shorten the next few hours, which I dread as I do my whole future
existence, but I should be obliged in the outset to yield the victory to
you. The great Herophilus is right when he transfers the seat of thought
from the heart to the head. What a wild tumult is raging here behind my
brow, and how one voice drowns another! The medley baffles description.
I could more easily count with my blind eyes the cells in a honeycomb
than refute with my bewildered brain even one shrewd objection. It seems
to me that we need our eyes to understand things. We certainly do to
taste. Whatever I eat and drink--langustae and melons, light Mareotic
wine and the dark liquor of Byblus my tongue can scarcely distinguish it.
The leech assures me that this will pass away, but until the chaos within
merges into endurable order there is nothing better for me than solitude
and rest, rest, rest."

"We will not deny them to you," replied Thyone, glancing significantly at
Daphne. "Proclus's enthusiastic judgment was sincerely meant. Begin by
rejoicing over it in the inmost depths of your heart, and vividly
imagining what a wealth of exquisite joys will be yours through your last
masterpiece."

"Willingly, if I can," replied the blind man, gratefully extending his
hand. "If I could only escape the doubt whether the most cruel tyrant
could devise anything baser than to rob the artist, the very person to
whom it is everything, of his sight."

"Yes, it is terrible," Daphne assented. "Yet it seems to me that a
richer compensation for the lost gift is at the disposal of you artists
than of us other mortals, for you understand how to look with the eyes of