He now longed to retire from the world, to lay aside his sacred thread—the triple thread of Brahmans—and devote to contemplation the few years left. But the size of his patriarchal household, and the necessity of making that 16_s._ 8_d._ a week restrained him, and, of course, his motives were laudable. Nevertheless, as usually happens, it would have been better for himself and his family if he had flung away his obvious duties and followed the call of his higher thoughts alone. For as I came away after receiving sour milk, and the usual pan leaf enclosing a bit of spice and beetel-nut to chew, one of his sons—an inferior telegraph clerk—stole after me to ask my advice about £2, which he had forwarded to a swindling Trust Company that plays the confidence trick with Congo Bonds and other ludicrous impostures. It was pitiful to think that the £2, now probably greasing the dirty works of Belgian brothels and gambling-hells, might have secured the philosopher nearly three weeks’ leisure from his school-teaching for the contemplation of the Monistic Essence, and but for his sense of family duty his son could not have squandered it. [Illustration: THE END OF MAN.] [Illustration: OFFERINGS TO THE DEAD. [_Face p. 108._ ] But among the common multitudes of the city, the dry light of this philosophic spirit is not conspicuous. It has never arisen, and the religious fervour of their existence remains misty, dark, and warm. Relics of far older beliefs mingle with their Hinduism. In one of their burning-grounds I met a little procession carrying milk in brazen bowls to wash the bones of the dead burnt yesterday, and to pour an offering for the spirit’s consolation. Round another grave a group of mourners were seated, offering yellow flowers, and pouring water on the dust that was alive last week. Two of them beat cymbals, and at long intervals a man raised a large white conch-shell to his lips and blew a melancholy note. Why will not the dead listen when they are called? Why will they not give one word of answer to trumpet, prayers, and love? And all the while, one of the mourners, regardless of the world, swayed to and fro chanting the undying truth that man must die, for life is a shadow, and he vanishes; those who stand beside a grave know this truth undying; they know that they too shall vanish like a shade, yet they go back to the city and sin, and sin again, forgetting that they too shall vanish like a shade. So the lamentation went on, the water was poured, the milk was offered, the conch-shell sounded its last vain summons, and the living returned to their life of numbered days. In the middle of Africa I have witnessed a yearning ceremonial exactly the same. It was the same that brought Electra out to Agamemnon’s tomb. It is the same that one may still see on All Saints’ Day, in any primitive region of Europe, and in the cemeteries of Paris herself. For it springs from the common longing of all mankind not to be forgotten,