"We should in that case improve from self-interest and not have our
faults eliminated by suffering. We are given no conscious memory of
our last life, so we go on fighting for whatever desire still holds
us until its achievement brings such overwhelming pain that the
desire is no more."

"Why do you say that for happiness we must banish thought--that seems
a paradox."

She was a little disturbed.

"I said if one _consciously_ and deliberately desired happiness, one must
banish thought to bring oneself back to the condition of hundreds of
people who are happy; many of them are even elementals without souls at
all. They are permitted happiness so that they may become so attached to
the earth plane that they willingly return and gradually obtain a soul.
But no one who is allowed to think is allowed any continued happiness;
there would be no progress. If so, we should remain as brutes."

"Then how cruel of you to suggest to me to think. I want to be
happy--perhaps I do not want to obtain a soul."

"That was born long ago--my words may have awakened it once more, but the
sleep was not deep."

Amaryllis Ardayre looked at the crowds passing and re-passing in those
stately rooms.

"Tell me, who is that woman over there?" she asked. "The very pretty one