gladness, and crown your head with garlands. It reminds one of the
offerings made by recent mourners at a tomb. The tomb gets the ointment
and the garlands, while the mourners drink and enjoy the feast.

If your patron is of a jealous disposition, and has a young wife or
handsome children, and you are not wholly without personal attractions,
then beware! you are on dangerous ground. Many are the ears of a king,
and many the eyes, that see not the truth only, but ever something over
and above the truth, lest they should seem to fail of their office.
Imagine yourself, therefore, at a Persian banquet. Keep your eyes
downwards, lest a eunuch should catch them resting on one of the
concubines. For see, there stands another with his bow ever on the
stretch: one glance at the forbidden object as you raise your cup, and
his arrow is through your jaw before you can put it down.

And now dinner is over; you retire, and snatch a little sleep. But at
cock-crow you are aroused. 'Wretch! Worm that I am!' you exclaim. 'To
sacrifice the pursuits, the society of former days, the placid life
wherein sleep was measured by inclination, and my comings and goings were
unfettered, and all to precipitate myself bodily into this hideous gulf!
And why? What, in God's name, is my glorious recompense? Was there no
other way? Could I not have provided for myself better than this, and
preserved liberty and free-will into the bargain? Alas! the lion is fast
bound in the net. I am haled hither and thither. Pitiable is my lot,
where no honour is to be won, no favour to be hoped for. Untaught,
unpractised in the arts of flattery, I am pitted against professionals. I
am no choice spirit, no jolly companion; to raise a laugh is beyond me.
My presence (well do I know it) is a vexation to my patron, and then most
when he is in his most gracious mood. He finds me sullen; and how to
attune myself to him I know not. If I wear a grim face, I am a sour