"How gloomy," said Rasselas, "would be these mansions of the dead to him who did not know that he should never die; that what now acts shall continue its agency, and what now thinks shall think on forever. Those that lie here stretched before us, the wise and the powerful of ancient times, warn us to remember the shortness of our present state; they were, perhaps, snatched away while they were busy, like us, in the choice of life."
"To me," said the princess, "the choice of life is become less important; I hope, hereafter, to think only on the choice of eternity."
It was now the time of the inundations of the Nile, and the searchers for happiness were, of necessity, confined to their house. Being, however, well supplied with materials for talk, they diverted themselves with comparisons of the different forms of life which they had observed, and with various schemes of happiness which each of them had formed--schemes which now they well knew would never be carried out.
They deliberated with Imlac what was to be done, and finally resolved, when the inundation should cease, to return to Abyssinia.
MAURUS JOKAI
Timar's Two Worlds
Maurus Jokai, by common consent the greatest Hungarian novelist of the nineteenth century, was born at Komarom on February 19, 1825. Trained for the law, as an advocate he achieved the distinction of winning his first case. The drudgery of a lawyer's office, however, proved uncongenial to him, and fired by the success of his first play, "The Jew Boy" ("Zsidó fiu"), he went to Pest, where he devoted himself to journalism, in due course becoming editor of "Eletképek," a leading Hungarian literary periodical. At the outbreak of the Revolution of 1848, he threw himself in with the supporters of the national cause. From that time until his death--which occurred on May 4, 1904--Jokai identified himself considerably with politics. Of all his novels perhaps, "Az arany ember" ("A Man of Gold"), translated into English under the title of "Timar's Two Worlds," takes the highest place. Its reputation has long since spread outside the boundaries of Hungary, and the story itself--a rare combination of descriptive power, humour, and pathos--has exercised no small influence upon European fiction of the romantic order.
I.--How Ali Saved his Daughter
A mountain-chain, pierced through from base to summit--a gorge four miles in length walled in by lofty precipices; and between these walls flows the Danube in its rocky bed.