Of the flowing river the flood ever changeth, on the still pool the foam gathering, vanishing, stayeth not. Such too is the lot of men and of the dwellings of men in this world of ours. Within City-Royal, paved as it were with precious stones, the mansions and houses of high and low, rivalling in length of beam and height of tiled roof, seem builded to last for ever, yet if you search few indeed are those that can boast of their antiquity. One year a house is burnt down, the next it is rebuilded, a lordly mansion falls into ruin, and a mere cottage replaces it: The fate of the occupants is like that of their abodes. Where they lived folk are still numerous, but out of any twenty or thirty you may have known scarce two or three survive. Death in the morning, birth in the evening. Such is man's life — a fleck of foam on the surface of the pool.