rehabilitated Esau, Jezebel, and Mephibosheth, among others, in the estimation of the world. If I had occasion to go further back, I could show that the first few chapters of Genesis are written in a party spirit very favourable to Abel.
Poet. O Buckle, father of History, what a son hast thou! But I hope you will go further back. "Universal History," to use the pretentious misnomer, is narrow enough at best, you are "confined and pestered in this pinfold" of some poor six thousand years, and nobody grudges you the exercise you take in it, for the most part upon crutches. The fact is that by the time a people begins to keep a diary, and to jot down its expenses and the events. of the day, it has become respectable, the period of its experiments and escapades is over. It has lost its zest in life and in the gifts of life, and has sunk into office-work—a dull and formal precision.
Hist. Were the Greeks dull and formal?
Poet. They were amazingly like us. The chief difference, so far as I can make out, between them and us lies in this, that they did the same things better. I forgot—it is true that if you tickled them they did not laugh, or at any rate they were very difficult to tickle. But no nation, it seems, can have both pomp and humour highly developed. They had pomp. What have we? Still, if I had my choice at this moment, I would be allowed to look at yonder moon for five minutes through the eyes of a cave-man rather than through the eyes of a Socrates.
Hist. And doubtless a monkey-house throws for you more light on society and institutions than, say, the Pan-Hellenic festivals?
Poet. It does, and for a simple reason. I have been a Greek, have sulked with Achilles in the tents, and with Ajax have taken my last farewell of the sun. But I have never been a monkey.
Hist. Courage, my friend! A man who despises human insti-tutions
