Yet it is true, that on my journey hither and during my residence at this court I have seen none but morose and gloomy countenances among the priesthood.

Even the youths, thy immediate attendants, are never seen to smile; though cheerfulness, that sweet gift of the gods, usually belongs to the young, as flowers to spring." "Thou errest," answered Amasis, "in believing this gloom to be a universal characteristic of the Egyptians.

It is true that our religion requires much serious thought.

There are few nations, however, who have so largely the gift of bantering fun and joke: or who on the occasion of a festival, can so entirely forget themselves and everything else but the enjoyments of the moment; but the very sight of a stranger is odious to the priests, and the moroseness which thou observest is intended as retaliation on me for my alliance with the strangers.

Those very boys, of whom thou spakest, are the greatest torment of my life.