"From the quiet river I have seen the painted barges of the Pharaohs move along under the sweeps of the negro slaves. Color and majesty and dignity. And the shaven priests chanted their litanies at the change of the moon. And from the Sahara the desert tribes brought tribute and treasure to Egypt, the men with the white horses and the black tents. And the nodding dromedaries and camels and their tinkling bells. And the kings raised their pyramids, and the multitude of men like ants listened at sunrise to the great masonic prayer. And they left the Sphinx to denote their mystery. And Cleopatra, who was Lilith reborn, played with Rome for a doll.
"All these things have I seen: the magic of great Moses, and the flight of the Little God of Galilee; the perfumed Pharaohs; the sinister yellow priests; the gnarled masons at their secret prayers; and Cleopatra brown as a berry, magnificent as jewels, venomous as a snake; and the sculptor at work on the Sphinx.
"And now tourists unwrap the great kings, and hucksters chaffer where once the trains of the prince-merchants of Tyre passed, and we shall never see a Cleopatra any more.
"But I am not complaining. Men do not swim as well as in the elder days, nor handle a boat as surely."
"I know nothing of painted Pharaohs," said the great white bear, "nor anything of Indian queens. In the North are neither kings nor masons, but day and night and ice, and a little people. In summer is the great sun, white light, and grass that is green for a little, and the thunder of breaking bergs, and in winter no sun but the flaming aurora and the white illimitable miles!
"And the swarthy little people were happy then. In the long nights they sang, and they bowed to the gods in boulder and stream, and set out in the little kayaks on the Arctic seas to hunt the great solemn walrus, or they set off in sledges through the pathless wastes. They were a brave people, a healthy people.
"And came the boats hunting our sister the whale, and the whales taught the little swarthy people progress, and everywhere now they are cunning and degraded and crusted with sin, and a great plague makes them spit blood, and waste to nothingness, and die."
They all looked at the horse, but the horse was silent.
"Look back in the folds of your memory," the lion prompted. "Look back well! Can you not remember the great races in the Roman circus? Listen a little! Can you not hear the trumpets of Agincourt?"
"And you, little brother—" the bear swung his ponderous head toward the dog—"was there not a time when you lay before a fire in a rush-strewn hall? And now the houses are too little. They tell me—I do not know. And did you not once run barking joyously beside man on his horse? And now horses are out of fashion, are they not, little comrade? And the cars are too fast for your short legs."