"The fear of death is the greatest incitement to live," continued Bagoas. "It is the goad which incessantly urges us to action. Our desire to live, to persist in one form or another, impels us to beget children, to overpower the imagination of future ages by the splendour of our monuments and the record of our lives. We seek to stamp our image upon our time, and influence our generation by every means in our power. But even this is not enough, so we have built ourselves a little world beyond the grave, a little haven beyond the waves of time. We believe that our souls will exist when our bodies have fallen into decay and escaped into a thousand different forms of new life, to be woven eternally on the loom of perpetual change. We believe that death is merely a transition, and that through virtue man is able to scale the brazen ramparts of the city of the gods." "If he is very good," said the Princess Candace. "Little Princess," said Bagoas, smiling, "your beauty is like a bright rainbow in the sky; the sunlight streaming upon drifting rain. Have you ever considered the personality of man, O King? Everything that has existed in the past exists in the soul of man. In its depths are the primeval monsters, Apsu and Tiamat. In its heights are enthroned the gods; action in it is heaped upon action to become habit, and habit upon habit to become character; all that we have seen, all that we have touched, the experience of the senses, the illusions of the brain, the desires of the heart, our ancestors, our companions, our country and occupations, all move and work mysteriously in our being. Each has left its trace upon the personality of man. Do you seek immortality for these? You will leave them with the world. Seek for yourself before you seek for self's immortality. Beneath what you seem to be lies what you think you are, and beneath that again lies what you are indeed." "Alas," cried Queen Parysatis, "such an immortality is too unsubstantial. It is our illusions, our experiences, and our aspirations, which give a savour to existence. What is the use of immortality if we leave everything we love?" "Mankind, O King," answered Bagoas, "loves its imperfections more than its perfections, and values as nothing an immortality which is devoid of our human frailties, our pitiful human friendships, our personal predilections which we obtusely term our principles." "It is true," said Merodach, "I die; but that which is mortal of me remains upon earth to be a witness for me in the memory of man." "The whole of recorded time is but a second, a pulsation, in the ages," answered Bagoas, "and the memory of man is the frailest of monuments. The Temple of Bel at Nippur is not two thousand years old; yet its bricks are engraven with a dead language, and we know not its builder's name. So it will be with thy temples and cities, O King!" "I have said it," answered Merodach.