_Hercules_. I will do so. For many centuries there has been in my father's house a certain poet, named Horace. He was made court poet at the suggestion of Augustus, who has been deified by Jove for his augmentation of the Eoman power. In one of his songs, this poet says that the just man would stir not, though the world fell. Since the world has now fallen, and no one has moved, it follows that all men are just. _Atlas_. Who doubts the justice of men? But do not lose time; run and exculpate me with your father, else I shall momentarily expect a thunderbolt to transform me from Atlas into Etna. [Footnote 1: See Pliny, Diogenes Laertius, Apollonius, VarrÚ, &c.] [Footnote 2: See Apollonius, Pliny, Tertullian, &c.] _DIALOGUE BETWEEN FASHION AND DEATH._ _Fashion_. Madam Death, Madam Death! _Death_. Wait until your time comes, and then I will appear without being called by you. _Fashion_. Madam Death! _Death_. Go to the devil. I will come when you least expect me. _Fashion_. As if I were not immortal! _Death_. Immortal? "Already has passed the thousandth year," since the age of immortals ended. _Fashion_. Madam is as much a Petrarchist as if she were an Italian poet of the fifteenth or eighteenth century. _Death_. I like Petrarch because he composed my triumph, and because he refers so often to me. But I must be moving. _Fashion_. Stay! For the love you bear to the seven cardinal sins, stop a moment and look at me. _Death_. Well. I am looking. _Fashion_. Do you not recognise me? _Death_. You must know that I have bad sight, and am without spectacles. The English make none to suit me; and if they did, I should not know where to put them. _Fashion_. I am Fashion, your sister. _Death_. My sister? _Fashion_. Yes. Do you not remember we are both born of Decay? _Death_. As if I, who am the chief enemy of Memory, should recollect it! _Fashion_. But I do. I know also that we both equally profit by the incessant change and destruction of things here below, although you do so in one way, and I in another. _Death_. Unless you are speaking to yourself, or to some one inside your throat, raise your voice, and pronounce your words more distinctly. If you go mumbling between your teeth with that thin spider-voice of yours, I shall never understand you; because you ought to know that my hearing serves me no better than my sight.