“Remember that Hades is the only land which holds the mirror up to nature. In the flash of the earth’s footlights, we act our part in the play of life to dazzle other men and blind them to our faults. Life is a series of poses, each like the film of a moving picture which by the juggling of the operator suggests continuous action, though composed of many lifeless photographs. Our life is an optical illusion. We are judged by what men see us do and yet they perhaps never see us when the mask is off and we have forgotten to pose. We strike our attitude and the world applauds or jeers. Only when life’s candle is snuffed out do we forget to pose, for then a great awe is upon us. What a haunting thought it is that ‘the evil that men do lives after them’! In life we hugged our sins to ourselves, guarding them zealously; so in death, why cannot they, like the good we do, be decently interred with our bones? When we are laid low, why must our sins go on a rampage of their own, both in the upper and the under worlds? In Hades the mask has been torn away and we see man as he is, not as he would have us see him.” “That must be diverting.” “Hades is the best place in the universe for the study of history. Socrates is here but his philosophy, as well as his wife, has deserted him; he is now a chronic kicker. Moses strikes his rod on the rocks in vain, for molten lava flows instead of water; the result of his rage is seen at Vesuvius, the devil’s chimney. Pontius Pilate is forever washing his hands, but the red blood flows afresh. Shakespeare tells him that the damned spot will not out. Eve is setting the fashion in fig leaves and serpentine dresses, but like her earthly descendants, is discontented, although she takes a certain spiteful satisfaction in the fact that the number of women in Hades is on the increase. Methuselah is hunting for the fountain of perpetual youth. He wants to be a boy again and his favorite poem is ‘Backward, turn backward, O Time, in thy flight.’ He suffers a periodic attack of second childishness every thousand years.” “And John Paul Jones?” “Poor Paul! he never will forgive me for disturbing his bones.” “I thought Ambassador Porter—”