and tombs of her kings,--revelations of the strength of will,--also by
inevitable suggestions call to our remembrance successive generations of
slaves and their endless toil. Morn after morn, at sunrise, for
thousands of years, did Memnon breathe forth his music, that his name
might be remembered upon the earth; but his music was the swell of a
broken harp, and his name was whispered in mournful silence! Among the
embalmed dead, in urn-burials, in the midst of catacombs, and among the
graves upon our hillsides and in our valleys, there lurks the same sad
mockery. Surely "purple Death and the strong Fates do conquer us!"
Strangely, in vast solitudes, comes over us a sense of desolation, when
even the faintest adumbrations of life seem lost in the inertia of
mortality. In all pomp lurks the pomp of funeral; and we do now and then
pay homage to the grim skeleton king who sways this dusty earth,--yea,
who sways our hearts of dust!

But it is only when we yield that we are conquered. "The daemon shall
not choose us, _but we shall choose our daemon_."[7] It is only when we
lose hold of our royal inheritance that Time is seen with his scythe and
the heritage becomes a waste.

This is the failure, the central loss, over which Achtheia mourns. Happy
are the _epoptæ_ who know this, who have looked the Sphinx in the face,
and escaped death! They are the seers, they the heroes!

But "_Conx Ompax_!"

And now, like good Grecians, let us make the double libation to our
lady,--toward the East and toward the West. That is an important point,
reader; for thus is recognized the intimate connection which our lady
has with the movements of Nature, in which her life is mirrored,--