"Knowledge is not power," replied Lélia. "Learning over again is not progress; seeing is not living. Who will give us back the power to act, and above all, the art of enjoying and retaining? We have gone too far forward now to retreat. What was merely repose for eclipsed civilizations will be death for our tired-out one; the rejuvenated nations of the East will come and intoxicate themselves with the poison we have poured on our soil. The bold barbarian drinkers may perhaps prolong the orgy of luxury a few hours into the night of time; but the venom we shall bequeath them will promptly be mortal for them, as it was for us, and all will drop back into blackness.... "In fact, Sténio, do you not see that the sun is withdrawing from us? Is not the earth, wearied in its journey, noticeably drifting toward darkness and chaos? Is your blood so young and ardent as not to feel the touch of that chill spread like a pall over this planet abandoned to Fate, the most powerful of the gods? Oh, the cold! that penetrating pain driving sharp needles into every pore. That curst breath that withers flowers and burns them like fire; that pain at once physical and mental, which invades both soul and body, penetrates to the depths of thought, and paralyzes mind as well as blood! Cold--the sinister demon who grazes the universe with his damp wing, and breathes pestilence on bewildered nations! Cold, tarnishing everything, unrolling its gray and nebulous veil over the sky's rich tints, the waters' reflections, the hearts of flowers, and the cheeks of maidens! Cold, that casts its white winding-sheet over fields and woods and lakes, even over the fur and feathers of animals! Cold, that discolors all in the material as well as in the intellectual world; not only the coats of bears and hares on the shores of Archangel, but the very pleasures of man and the character of his habits in the spots it approaches! You surely see that everything is being civilized; that is to say, growing cold. The bronzed nations of the torrid zone are beginning to open their timid and suspicious hands to the snares of our skill; lions and tigers are being tamed, and come from the desert to amuse the peoples of the north. Animals which had never been able to grow accustomed to our climate, now leave their warm sun without dying, to live in domesticity among us, and even forget the proud and bitter sorrow which used to kill them when enslaved. It is because blood is congealing and growing poorer everywhere, while instinct grows and develops. The soul rises and leaves the earth, no longer sufficient for her needs." END OF VOL. VII.