mind, and addressed him in winged
words. "Zeus, father of gods and men, cloud-compeller, what wouldst thou
of me? But first will I say what I would of thee"; and she besought him
to extend to the writers of history such privileges as are granted to
novelists. His whole manner had changed. He listened to her with the
massive gravity of a ruler who never yet has allowed private influence
to obscure his judgment. He was silent for some time after her appeal.
Then, in a voice of thunder, which made quake the slopes of Parnassus,
he gave his answer. He admitted the disabilities under which historians
laboured. But the novelists--were they not equally handicapped? They had
to treat of persons who never existed, events which never were. Only
by the privilege of being in the thick of those events, and in the very
bowels of those persons, could they hope to hold the reader's attention.
If similar privileges were granted to the historian, the demand for
novels would cease forthwith, and many thousand of hard-working,
deserving men and women would be thrown out of employment. In fact, Clio
had asked him an impossible favour. But he might--he said he conceivably
might--be induced to let her have her way just once. In that event, all
she would have to do was to keep her eye on the world's surface, and
then, so soon as she had reason to think that somewhere was impending
something of great import, to choose an historian. On him, straightway,
Zeus would confer invisibility, inevitability, and psychic penetration,
with a flawless memory thrown in.

On the following afternoon, Clio's roving eye saw Zuleika stepping from
the Paddington platform into the Oxford train. A few moments later I
found myself suddenly on Parnassus. In hurried words Clio told me how I
came there, and what I had to do. She said she had selected me because
she knew me to be honest, sober, and capable, and no stranger to Oxford.
Another moment, and I was at the throne of Zeus. With a majesty of
gesture which I shall never forget, he stretched his hand over me, and I
was indued with the promised gifts. And then, lo! I was on the platform
of Oxford station. The train was not due for another hour. But the time
passed pleasantly enough.

It was fun to float all unseen, to float all unhampered by any corporeal
nonsense, up and down the platform. It was fun to watch the inmost
thoughts of the station-master, of the porters, of the young person at
the buffet. But of cour