“Are you a politician?” “I? No. I care not two straws for the reconstruction of the Greek Empire, the recovery of Byzantium from the Turks, or any of those things which agitate my countrymen. No. I am a terribly selfish man, sir, as you will doubtless think. I only want to live in happiness, and for the good of my fellow-creatures I care nothing.” “Is that not rather an egotistical way of looking at life?” “Doubtless, sir, from your point of view, but not from mine. You are a priest of your Church, what we call a Papa in my country, and live the life of the soul, while I live the life of the body. You believe in self-abnegation—I in self-satisfaction. With this beautiful world I am content, but you rack your soul with longings for the life beyond the grave. In a word, I am real, you are ideal; but I am the happiest.” “The happiness of the beasts which perish!” said the Rector emphatically. “Well, the beasts, as a rule, have a very good time of it during their lives; as to the rest, we all perish at last.” “The body, but not the soul.” “Ah, that I do not know. I may have a soul, but I am not certain; but I have a body, and as long as that is at ease, why should I trouble about things in the next life?” “Do you ever think of the hereafter?” “Never! If I die, I die! While I live, I live! I prefer present certainty to future doubt.” Mr. Carriston was silent, as he did not care about arguing theology with this subtle Greek, whose religion, whose philosophy, assumed Protean forms to meet every objection. He was full of sophistry and double dealing, an unfair adversary in every sense of the word, and was so encased in his armor of self-complacency and egotism, that he could never be brought to look at things either spiritual or material in any light than that which satisfied the selfishness of his own soul. The Rector, therefore, avoided the threatened argument, and applied himself to his wine, which was a much more agreeable task than attempting to convince this egoist that the supreme aim of life was not the pampering of the passions of the individual man. “Apart from the theological aspect of the case,” said Carriston good-humoredly, “it is rather a mistaken thing to live only for one’s self. Where ignorance is bliss, I grant; but, because you know no higher life than that of the body, you at once assume that there can be no happier existence.”