greatly. And although my age was then marvellous being over and
above a thousand and seven hundred years, yet found she my person
neither pitiful nor uncomely, for I was still in body even such as
when the Lord Jesus spake the word of my doom. And the damsel loved
me, and was mine. And she was as the apple of mine eye. And the
world was no more unto me as a desert, but it blossomed as the rose
of Sharon. And although I knew every city upon it, and every highway
and navigable sea, yet did all become to me fresh and new because of
the joy which the damsel had in beholding its kingdoms and the
glories thereof.

"'And it came to pass that my heart grew proud within me, and I said
to myself that I was all-superior to other men, for Death could not
touch me; that I was a marvel upon the face of the world; and in
this yet more above all men that had ever lived, that at such an age
as mine I could yet gain the love, yea, the absolute devotion, of
such an one as my wife, who never wearied of my company and
conversation. So I took to me even the free grace of love as my
merit unto pride, and laid it not to the great gift of God and the
tenderness of the heart of my beloved. Like Satan in Heaven I was
uplifted in the strength and worthiness and honour of my demon-self,
and my pride went not forth in thanks, for I gloried not in my God,
but in Ahasuerus. Then the thought smote me like an arrow of
lightning: She will die, and thou shalt live--live--live--and as he
hath delayed, so will he yet delay his coming. And as Satan from the
seventh heaven, I fell prone.

"'Then my spirit began again to revive within me, and I said, Lo! I
have yet many years of her love ere she dieth, and when she is gone,
I shall yet have the memory of my beloved to be with me, and cheer