It is not because you care for wealth if that is to be won here; nor for the pomp and show of courts; nor for the company of the great who really are so small.

For all these things you, Ana, have no craving if I read your heart aright, you who are an artist, nothing less and nothing more.

Tell me, then, why will you, a free man who can earn your living, linger round a throne and set your neck beneath the heel of princes to be crushed into the common mould of servitors and King's Companions and Bearers of the Footstool ?" "I will tell you, Prince.

First, because thrones make history, as history makes thrones, and I think that great events are on foot in Egypt in which I would have my share.

Secondly, because the gods bring gifts to men only once or twice in their lives and to refuse them is to offend the gods who gave them those lives to use to ends of which we know nothing.