him. The spark of ethereal fire would be choked by the material,
the sensual. There is a celestial something within us that
requires, after a certain time, the atmosphere of heaven to preserve
it from decay and ruin. I will have none of this liquid. You do
well to keep it in a sepulchral urn; for it would produce death
while bestowing the shadow of life."

"All this is unintelligible to me," responded my guide, with
indifference. "Life--earthly life--is the only good. But you
refuse the draught? Well, it is not likely to be offered twice
within one man's experience. Probably you have griefs which you
seek to forget in death. I can enable you to forget them in life.
Will you take a draught of Lethe?"

As he spoke, the virtuoso took from the shelf a crystal vase
containing a sable liquor, which caught no reflected image from the
objects around.

"Not for the world!" exclaimed I, shrinking back. "I can spare none
of my recollections, not even those of error or sorrow. They are all
alike the food of my spirit. As well never to have lived as to lose
them now."

Without further parley we passed to the next alcove, the shelves of
which were burdened with ancient volumes and with those rolls of
papyrus in which was treasured up the eldest wisdom of the earth.
Perhaps the most valuable work in the collection, to a bibliomaniac,
was the Book of Hermes. For my part, however, I would have given a
higher price for those six of the Sibyl's books which Tarquin
refused to purchase, and which the virtuoso informed me he had