ents were known only to the gods. Epimethus was
unable to answer. Day by day, the curiosity of Pandora increased. To
her the gods had never given anything but good. Surely there must be
here gifts more precious still. What if the Olympians had destined her
to be the one to open the casket, and had sent her to earth in order
that she might bestow on this dear world, on the men who lived on it,
and on her own magnificent Titan, happiness and blessings which only
the minds of gods could have conceived? Thus did there come a day when
Pandora, unconscious instrument in the hands of a vengeful Olympian,
in all faith, and with the courage that is born of faith and of love,
opened the lid of the prison-house of evil. And as from coffers in the
old Egyptian tombs, the live plague can still rush forth and slay, the
long-imprisoned evils rushed forth upon the fair earth and on the
human beings who lived on it--malignant, ruthless, fierce,
treacherous, and cruel--poisoning, slaying, devouring. Plague and
pestilence and murder, envy and malice and revenge and all
viciousness--an ugly wolf-pack indeed was that one let loose by
Pandora. Terror, doubt, misery, had all rushed straightway to attack
her heart, while the evils of which she had never dreamed stung mind
and soul into dismay and horror, when, by hastily shutting the lid of
the coffer, she tried to undo the evil she had done.

And lo, she found that the gods had imprisoned one good gift only in
this Inferno of horrors and of ugliness. In the world there had never
been any need of Hope. What work was there for Hope to do where all
was perfect, and where each creature possessed the desire of body and
of heart? Therefore Hope was thrust into the chest that held the
evils, a star in a black night, a lily growing on a dung-heap. And as
Pandora, white-lipped and trembling, looked into the otherwise empty
box, courage came back to her heart, and Epimethus let fall to his
side the arm that would have slain the woman of his love because there
came to him, like a draught of wine to a warrior spent in battle, an
imperial vision of the sons of men through all the aeons to come,
combatting all evils of body and of soul, going on conquering and to
conquer. Thus, saved by Hope, the Titan and the woman faced the
future, and for them the vengeance of the gods was stayed.

"Yet I argue not
Against Heav'n's hand or will, nor bate a jot
Of heart or hope; but st