Prague is constructed on the same principle as the human brain, full of winding ways, dark lanes, and gloomy arches, all of which may lead somewhere, or may not.

Its topography continually misleads its inhabitants as the convolutions of the brain mislead the thoughts that dwell there, sometimes bringing them out at last, after a patient search for daylight, upon a fine broad street where the newest fashions in thought are exposed for sale in brightly illuminated shop windows and showcases; conducting them sometimes to the dark, unsavoury court where the miserable self drags out its unhealthy existence in the single room of its hired earthly lodging." "The self which you propose to preserve from corruption," observed the tall man, who was carefully examining every foot of the walls between which he was passing with his companion, "since you think so poorly of the lodger and the lodging, I wonder that you should be anxious to prolong the sufferings of the one and his lease of the other." "It is all I have," answered Keyork Arabian.

"Did you think of that ?" "That circumstance may serve as an excuse, but it does not constitute a reason." "Not a reason! Is the most abject poverty a reason for throwing away the daily crust?
My self is all I have.

Shall I let it perish when an effort may preserve it from destruction?
On the one side of the line stands Keyork Arabian, on the other floats the shadow of an annihilation, which threatens to swallow up Keyork's self, while leaving all that he has borrowed of life to be enjoyed, or wasted by others.

Could Keyork be expected to hesitate, so long as he may hope to remain in possession of that inestimable treasure, his own individuality, which is his only means for enjoying all that is not his, but borrowed ?" "So soon as you speak of enjoyment, argument ceases," answered the Wanderer.
"You are wrong, as usual," returned the other.