“If a man would cage a bird of heaven (and such, I think, is my son), it is necessary that earth should be made heaven, so that no home-sickness for the blue heights should take him. And because a young man may weary of one woman’s beauty, however beautiful, let fresh faces be found to make for him a wreath of such roses of the earth as may intoxicate him with its love and perfume. Send north to Savatthi and south to Benares, and fetch such beauties, such players on the vina and sitar as sing before the high Gods, such dancers as those whose white limbs, melting to music, enchant their eyes. Give orders to build him a house for the winter, when the snow is blue in the hollows of Himalaya and the rivers are locked in his cold heart. See that it be warm and silent and that no wind may creep in, and let white furs of snow-leopards, clouded with black, lie about it, soft and smooth to the touch, and let there be story-tellers to speed the long nights with jest and amorous tale and clash of battle. Shut out the cold and terrible moon with close lattice-work and rich curtains, for she, remote and small in the blue, profound skies, may freeze his soul to the chill calm I fear.” And the minister, saluting, said: “All shall be done. And yet——” “And yet there is more before we may sleep in peace. Build for him also a house of spring. Let it be pavilioned, and with little stiff, frilled roofs flying outward like the skirts of a dancer when she revolves swiftly. On every point set a wind-bell to resemble her anklets and armlets in their tinkling, so that the soft breezes from the hills shall make an aerial music as they wander about it. Let it appear as if the whole were blown together like a cloud on a wind and might be lifted and dispersed like thistle-down—a dream of spring.” And the old wise man saluted, saying: “It shall be done. And yet——” “And yet it is not enough,” mused the Maharaja, stroking his great beard. “For we must build also a house for summer—to drowse in, dim and cool and with long echoing colonnades to catch the faintest breath of breeze. Let this house be set in the grass by Rohini, that her liquid voice may sing of the snows when the dog-days are sultry. And let it be paved with shining stone from the mountains, and the walls be of dark cedar, carved wonderfully, and all the windows dimmed and latticed that the heats die on the threshold. Choose a place for it where the asoka trees are deep with rich leafage and golden blossom, and the neems spread their shade and the acacias rain white petals and the champak swoons in its heavy sweetness. Let there be a lake, pensive with reeds and green reaches, the haunt of swans and cranes and all beautiful water birds, and silver rills by which my son may sit and muse if he will, until the langour of slowly dropping water shall pass into his veins and be a narcotic binding him for ever to long dreaming days and nights, and he be utterly content.” And the old man saluted, saying: