u have said that
which you were too proud and obstinate to unsay, which has lacerated
some heart for thirty years that had perhaps secretly and faithfully
served you and yours. Christianity lays hold on that as a point of
conscience, if not of honour, to make _amends_, if in no other way, by
remorse.

As to the tears of Oedipus in the crises. I am compelled to believe that
Sophocles erred as regarded nature; for in cases so transcendent as this
Greek nature and English nature could not differ. In the great agony on
Mount Oeta, Hercules points the pity of his son Hyllus to the extremity
of torment besieging him on the humiliating evidence of the tears which
they extorted from him. 'Pity me,' says he, 'that weep with sobs like a
girl: a thing that no one could have charged upon the man' (pointing to
himself); 'but ever without a groan I followed out to the end my
calamities.' Now, on the contrary, on the words of the oracle, that
beckoned away with impatient sounds Oedipus from his dear sublime
Antigone, Oedipus is made to weep.

But this is impossible. Always the tears arose, and will arise, on the
_relaxation_ of the torment and in the rear of silent anguish on its
sudden suspense, amidst a continued headlong movement; and also, in
looking back, tears, unless checked, might easily arise. But never
during the torment: on the rack there are no tears shed, and those who
suffered on the scaffold never yet shed tears, unless it may have been
at some oblique glance at things collateral to their suffering, as
suppose a sudden glimpse of a child's face which they had loved in life.

Is not every [Greek: aion] of civilization an inheritance from a
previous state not so high? Thus, _e.g._, the Romans, with so little of
Christian restraint, would have perished by reaction of their own vices,
but for certain prejudices and follies about trade, manufacture, etc.,
and but for oil on their persons to prevent contagion. Now, this oil had
been, I think, a secret bequeathed from some older and higher
civilization long since passed away. We have it not, but neither have we
so much needed it. Soon, however, we shall restore the secret by science
more perfect.

Was Christianity meant to narrow or to widen the road to future
happiness? If I were translated to some other planet, I should say:

1. _No_; for it raised a far higher standard--_ergo_, made the
realization of this far more difficult.

2. _Yes_; for it introduced a new