There are some minds, and the literature of Athens in the classical age unites in proving that then and there such minds were a prevalent type, to which no art of language, no art of any sort, could give pleasure more intense in its kind than they will derive from the triumphant duplicity of this single word. There is no better point in The Egoist.
One more touch only of this fashion I will ask leave to point out, because I find it myself so signally delightful. If the visitors to whom the maid-servant addresses her story had been capable of reasoning, of calculation, of reflecting (like honest Heracles[1]) that to weep for a bare prediction, as things go in this world, is somewhat premature, if they had not in short been the slaves of oracular dictum, their simple course would have been to rescue the lady at once from the bigots who are abetting her suicide, to scatter the servants, amuse the children, silence the 'imploring' husband, and tell the queen herself, that if she will only think it possible to live, if she will only take food and keep quiet, 'the fatal day' will bring no further harm whatever, and to-morrow she will find herself, as she was this morning, perfectly well. Instead of this these 'particular friends' of Admetus, being on this side blind as himself, begin desperately to pray, 'O Zeus, deliver us! O Paean, help us! No hope but in heaven!' and so on. Great indeed must be the relief and thankfulness of the judicious spectator, when after a few minutes of this folly they innocently exclaim. Is not this enough to make a man cut his throat, yes, more than enough to make a man hang himself? His dear, his dearest wife will perish within this day, and he will see her die![2]
It is not however in any such gems of cleverness, thick-set and brilliant as they are, that the power of the piece is mainly placed. It is in the design of the whole, by which the fabulous legend is so skilfully translated into facts of 'this common life in which we live', that minds prepared could not escape the reflexion 'Thus indeed, or in some such way, the thing may have taken place, and the story may have arisen!' As for the preparation of mind, it was given by the notoriety of the author's aims and sentiments, re-inforced for the occasion by the subtle and characteristic travesty which serves as a prologue. Of this
