"Aye," Publius said, "I see, a euphemism; A needed euphemism, and well devised. For who, not weary of life through long defeat, Or through disease, old age, or loss of good, Or else exhausted in the springs of joy Within himself through waste of youth and health In those excesses which bring on decay Before its season--who not broken so, Here and there one, not many in any time, Would to that bait proffered without disguise, Mere blank non-being, spring with appetite? And those, the few who did, would they await Nirvâna as the goal of long pursuit, Not snatch it instant with rash suicide? We Romans have a growing fashion of so Precipitately rushing on our end. I trow thou wouldst in vain strive to persuade Us Romans to spend tedious years and years In seeking not to live so as not to suffer; We should be too impatient far for that." "O Publius," Krishna said, "rash suicide Is no escape from life. Life has its snare Safe round thee still, and thou art born again Into another form, another state, Worse, and not better, than before. The Path, That only, leads thee to the utter end: So Buddha taught and so I have believed." The Indian ceased thus with the air of one Wavering where he had certain been before; And Publius felt that he for Krishna spoke, Scarce less than for himself, when he inquired: "Aye, aye, how know we that the 'Path,' to name Thus by thy word a thing to me unknown, How know we that the Path, even that, indeed Will lead one out of life to nothingness? If so be Buddha's doctrine holds, and life Slides on from form to form, from state to state, Unhindered by the fact of suicide, How know we that there ever comes an end? Consider, he himself, the teacher, may, Who knows?--this moment while we talk of him Be fleeting forward on the endless flight Fatal of that metempsychosis preached. What surety have we that it is not so?