uses speak with their own voices as they had spoken by Sappho's? He was
especially pleased to see his own moral superiority to Zeus so eloquently
enforced by AEschylus, and delighted in criticising the sentiments which
the other poets had put into the mouths of the gods. Homer, he thought,
must have been in Olympus often, and Aristophanes not seldom. When he read
in the Cyclops of Euripides, "Stranger, I laugh to scorn Zeus's
thunderbolts," he grew for a moment thoughtful. "Am I," he questioned,
"ending where Polyphemus began?" But when he read a little further on:

The wise man's only Jupiter is this,
To eat and drink during his little day,
And give himself no care--

"No," he said, "the Zeus that nailed me to the rock is better than this
Zeus. But well for man to be rid of both, if he does not put another in
their place; or, in dropping his idolatry, has not flung away his religion.
Heaven has not departed with Zeus." And, taking his lyre, he sang:

What floods of lavish splendour
The lofty sun doth pour!
What else can Heaven render?
What room hath she for more?

Yet shall his course be shortly done,
And after his declining
The skies that held a single Sun
With thousands shall be shining.

V

It was not long ere the gods began to find their way to Prometheus's
earthly paradise, and who came once came again. The first was Epimetheus,
who had probably suffered least of all from the general upset, having in
truth little to lose since his ill-starred union with Pandora. He had
indeed reason for thankfulness in his practical divorce from his spouse,
who had settled in Caucasia, and gave Greek lessons to the Princess
Miriam. Would Prometheus lend him half a talent? a quarter? a tenth? a
hundredth? Thanks, thanks. Prometheus might rely upon it that his residence
should not be divulged on any account. Notwithstanding which assurance, the
cottage was visited next day by eleven gods and demigods, mostly Titans.
Elenko found it trying, and was really alarmed when by and by the Furies,
having made over their functions to the Devil, strolled up to take the air,
and dropped in for a chat, bringing Cerberus. But they behaved exceedingly
well, and took back a message from Elenko to Eurydice. Ere long she was on
most intimate terms with all the dethroned divinities, celestial, infernal,
and marine.

Beautiful and blessed beyond most things is youthful enthusiasm, looking up
to something