’Each beloved object born
    Sets within the heart a thorn,
    Bleeding, when they be uptorn.’

And it is well asked—­

    ’When thine own house, this rotting frame, doth wither,
    Thinking another’s lasting—­goest thou thither?’

What will be, will be; and who knows not—­

    ’Meeting makes a parting sure,
    Life is nothing but death’s door.’

For truly—­

    ’As the downward-running rivers never turn and never stay,
    So the days and nights stream deathward, bearing human lives away.’

And though it be objected that—­

    ’Bethinking him of darkness grim, and death’s unshunned pain,
    A man strong-souled relaxes hold, like leather soaked in rain.’

Yet is this none the less assured, that—­

    ’From the day, the hour, the minute,
      Each life quickens in the womb;
    Thence its march, no falter in it,
      Goes straight forward to the tomb.’

Form, good friend, a true idea of mundane matters; and bethink thee that regret is after all but an illusion, an ignorance—­

    ’An ’twere not so, would sorrow cease with years? 
    Wisdom sees aright what want of knowledge fears.’

’Kaundinya listened to all this with the air of a dreamer.  Then rising up he said, ’Enough! the house is hell to me—­I will betake me to the forest.’

‘Will that stead you?’ asked Kapila; ’nay—­

    ’Seek not the wild, sad heart! thy passions haunt it;
    Play hermit in thine house with heart undaunted;
    A governed heart, thinking no thought but good,
    Makes crowded houses holy solitude.’

To be master of one’s self—­to eat only to prolong life—­to yield to love no more than may suffice to perpetuate a family—­and never to speak but in the cause of truth, this,’ said Kapila, ’is armor against grief.  What wouldst thou with a hermit’s life—­prayer and purification from sorrow and sin in holy streams?  Hear this!—­

    ’Away with those that preach to us the washing off of sin—­
    Thine own self is the stream for thee to make ablutions in: 
    In self-restraint it rises pure—­flows clear in tide of truth,
    By widening banks of wisdom, in waves of peace and ruth. 
    Bathe there, thou son of Pandu! with reverence and rite,
    For never yet was water wet could wash the spirit white.’

Resign thyself to loss.  Pain exists absolutely.  Ease, what is it but a minute’s alleviation?’

‘It is nothing else,’ said Kaundinya:  ‘I will resign myself!’ Thereupon,’ the Serpent continued, ’he cursed me with the curse that I should be a carrier of frogs, and so retired—­and here remain I to do according to the Brahman’s malediction.’

’The Frog, hearing all this, went and reported it to Web-foot the Frog-King, who shortly came himself for an excursion on the Serpent.  He was carried delightfully, and constantly employed the conveyance.  But one day observing the Serpent to be sluggish, he asked the reason.