Perhaps you say, Why are the wicked joyous? Why do they live in luxury? Why do they not toil with me? It is because they who have not put down their names to strive for the crown are not bound to undergo the labors of the contest. They who have not gone down into the race-course do not annoint themselves with oil nor get covered with dust. For those whom glory awaits trouble is at hand. The perfumed spectators are wont to look on, not to join in the struggle, nor to endure the sun, the heat, the dust, and the showers ...
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He who sleeps here, when dying, mistaking the approach of death for the return of health, whispered with his latest breath, I am better now. Let us believe, in spite of doubts and dogmas, of fears and tears, that these dear words are true of all the countless dead. The record of a generous life runs like a vine around the memory of our dead, and every sweet, unselfish act is now a perfumed flower.
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What more fiendish proof of cosmic irresponsibility than a Nature which, having invented sex as a way to mix genes, then permits to arise, amid all its perfumed and hypnotic inducements to mate, a tireless tribe of spirochetes and viruses that torture and kill us for following orders?
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I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning.
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