“Anything you like,” is the reply. “Anticipating your desires, I have already taken thirty years from your age.” “Perpetual youth, eh?” exclaims the newcomer. “It looks as if I’d come to the good place, after all. But what about the golden crown?” “You can have one if you like,” comes the answer, and presto! a starry golden crown encircles the stranger’s brow. “Exactly according to the specifications,” says he. “And now, what else have you got here?” “Anything you like,” replies the angel. “I can have everything I desire? Absolutely everything?” asks the soul excitedly. “Subject only to certain restrictions imposed by the nature of the place,” is the reply. “There is neither pain, nor suffering, nor struggle here. Anything else that you desire I will procure for you.” There follows a succession of requests and realizations: The best of things to eat and drink; luxurious living quarters; “period” furniture and decorations; masterpieces of painting and statuary; the society of beauteous women (Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, and others). But each of these exalted experiences proves to be insufficient and finally cloying, and the experimenter demands a change. “This everlasting perfection palls,” he says. “The sights are too uniformly beautiful, the ladies too uniformly clever, charming, and obliging.... I know what I want! I want some work.” But he discovers that, since work implies wanting something that one cannot have by merely wanting it, whereas here one gets a thing by merely asking for it, the satisfaction of work is out of the question. He and his obliging attendant ransack their minds to think of something that might possibly relieve the tedium. The attendant, at his wits’ end and discouraged, turns to go, saying, “I don’t know what to propose, Sir. But if anything occurs to you,” ... “Hold on!” cries the seeker; “I’ve got it! I want some pain; that’s it.” “I’m sorry, Sir,” comes the polite answer, “but no one is allowed to have any pain in this place. You’ll get used to the restriction after you’ve been here a few thousand years. They all feel as you do at first, but they all get accustomed, after a while, to this mode of existence.” “But,” ejaculates the neophyte, “I can’t stand this damned everlasting bliss! I’d rather be in hell.” The Presence, stepping back and looking at him in astonishment, asks, “And wherever do you think you _are_, Sir?” PART III YET OUR CAPACITIES ARE IN BONDAGE XIX THE CYNIC INTERJECTS A QUESTION Some cynic, my mind’s eye tells me, is smiling over the picture of human nature that emerges out of the preceding sections.