"Everything. As for misfortunes, is it not better to know of them than to encounter them unforeseen?" Benedict bowed so deeply over King George's hand that he almost touched it with his lips. "A truly royal hand," he said, after having glanced over it, "a beneficent hand; an artistic hand." "I did not ask for compliments, sir," said the king, smiling. "See, my dear master," said Benedict, addressing Kaulbach, "how well the Mount of Apollo, there, under the ring-finger, is developed! Apollo bestows love of the arts; he is the giver of intelligence, of all that is brilliant and creates brilliance. It is he who gives the hope of an immortal name, calm of the soul, the sympathy that creates love. Look at the Mount of Mars, represented by the part opposite the thumb. This is what gives courage, both civil and military, calm, coolness in danger, resignation, pride, devotion, resolution, and the strength of resistance. Unfortunately, Saturn is against us. Saturn threatens. You know, sire, Saturn is Fate. Now, I ought to tell you, the lines of Saturn are not only unfavourable; they are calamitous." And here Benedict raised his head and looking at the king with the utmost respect and sympathy: "I might continue more intimately yet, sire," he said, "and reveal your whole character in its most secret recesses. I might sketch your inclinations one by one to you to their lightest shades; but I should prefer to pass at once to graver facts. At twelve years old, Your Majesty had a serious illness." "It is true," said the king. "At nineteen, a line extends both towards the brain and towards the Mount of the Sun--a nervous seizure on one side; on the other, something resembling death, but which is not death--an eclipse! And worse than that, an eclipse is momentary one night!" "The gipsy told me literally the same as you--something that resembles death, but is not death! The fact is that at the age of nineteen I passed through great trouble." "Stay! Here, sire, on Jupiter there is a marvellous gleam; one of the highest seats of human fortune--about the age of thirty-nine." "Again the words of the gipsy. At thirty-nine I became king." "I was ignorant of the precise dates," said Benedict, "but it might be supposed that I knew them. Let me look for a fact that I could not have known. Ah, I see it. Yes, it is certainly here. An agony of terror, an accident due to water. What is it? A boat in danger? A tempest watched from the shore? The imminent wreck of a vessel containing some one beloved? There is fearful terror, but terror only; for there is a rescue traced close to the line of fate. Your Majesty undoubtedly experienced terrible anxiety for the life of some one greatly beloved.' "Do you hear this, Ernest?" said the king addressing his son.