19. Death is incessantly staring and growling at our face, as a cat looks and purrs at the mouse in order to devour it. 20. Old age wastes us as soon as a glutton digests his food; and it reduces one to weakness as an old harlot, by no other charm than her paint and perfumes. 21. Youth forsakes us as soon, as a good man abandons his wicked friend in disgust, after his foibles come to be known to him in a few days. 22. Death the lover of destruction, and friend of old age and ruin, likes the sensual man, as a lecher likes a beauty. 23. Thus there is nothing so worthless in the world as this life, which is devoid of every good quality and ever subject to death, unless it is attended by the permanent felicity of emancipation. CHAPTER XV. OBLOQUY ON EGOISM. Ráma continued:— Egoism springs from false conceit, and it is vanity (or vain glory) which fosters it; I am much afraid of this baneful egotism which is an enemy (to human kind). 2. It is under the influence of egotism that all men in this diversified world, and even the very poorest of them, fall into the dungeon of evils, and misdeeds. 3. All accidents, anxieties, troubles and wicked exertions proceed from egoism or self-confidence; hence I deem egoism as a disease. 4. Being subject to that everlasting arch-enemy—the cynic egoism, I have refrained from my food and drink. What other enjoyment is there for me to partake of? 5. This world resembles a long continuous night, in which our egoism like a hunter, spreads the snare of affections (to entrap us in it). 6. All our great and intolerable miseries, growing as rank as the thorny plants of the catechu, are but results of our egoism. 7. It overcasts the equanimity of mind as an eclipse overshadows the moon; it destroys our virtues as a frost destroys the lotus flowers; it dispels the peace of men as the autumn drives away the clouds. I must therefore get rid of this egoistic feeling. 8. I am not Ráma the prince, I have no desire nor should I wish for affluence; but I wish to have the peace of my mind and remain as the self-satisfied old sage Jina. 9. All that I have eaten, done or offered in sacrifice under the influence of egoism, have gone for nothing; it is the absence of egoism which (I call) to be real good. 10. So long, O Bráhman! as there is (the feeling of) egoism in one, he is subject to sorrow at his difficulties; but being devoid of it, he becomes happy; hence it is better to be without it. 11. I am free from anxiety, O sage! ever since I have got the tranquility of my mind after giving up my (sense of) egoism; and known the transitoriness of all enjoyments. 12. As long, O Bráhman! as the cloud of egoism overspreads (the region of our minds), so long our desires expand themselves like the buds of _kurchi_ plants (in the rains).