I could see that this Death
was sandblind. At the next door was a Death whose colour was worst of
all, and whose liver was entirely gone--his name was Envy. "This is the
Death," said Sleep, "which brings hither those who have lost money,
slanderers, and a rideress or two, who are jealous of the law which
demands that a wife should submit herself unto her husband." "Pray, sir,
what is a rideress?" "A rideress is a woman who will over-ride her
husband, her neighbourhood, and the whole country if she can, and by dint
of long riding, at last, rides a devil from that door down to the
bottomless pit." Next was the door of Ambition-Death for those who hold
their heads high, and break their necks, for want of looking on the
ground they tread on; at this door lay crowns, sceptres, standards,
petitions for offices, and all manner of arms of heraldry and war.
But before I had time to notice any more of these innumerable doors, I
heard a voice bidding me by name to be dissolved, and at the word I felt
myself beginning to melt like a snowball in the heat of the sun; then my
master gave me a sleeping draught, so that I slumbered; and when I awoke,
he had taken me by some road or other far away on the other side of the
castle.
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