In my eyes, your modern artists are already old; they have two or three thousand years of existence; I confound them in my own mind. Masters have no age.” “And these musicians?” said I, pointing out some works of Weber, Rossini, Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, Meyerbeer, Hérold, Wagner, Auber, Gounod, and a number of others, scattered over a large model piano-organ which occupied one of the panels of the drawing-room. “These musicians,” replied Captain Nemo, “are the contemporaries of Orpheus; for in the memory of the dead all chronological differences are effaced; and I am dead, Professor; as much dead as those of your friends who are sleeping six feet under the earth!” Captain Nemo was silent, and seemed lost in a profound reverie. I contemplated him with deep interest, analysing in silence the strange expression of his countenance. Leaning on his elbow against an angle of a costly mosaic table, he no longer saw me,—he had forgotten my presence. I did not disturb this reverie, and continued my observation of the curiosities which enriched this drawing-room. Under elegant glass cases, fixed by copper rivets, were classed and labelled the most precious productions of the sea which had ever been presented to the eye of a naturalist. My delight as a professor may be conceived. The division containing the zoophytes presented the most curious specimens of the two groups of polypi and echinodermes.