decided the question. If
he was weakly, if he had any bodily unsightliness, he was exposed on a
place called Taygetus, and so perished. It was a consequence of this
that never did the sun in his course light on man half so godly
stalwart, on woman half so houri-lovely, as in stern and stout old
Sparta. Death, like all mortal, they must bear; disease, once and for
all, they were resolved to have done with. The word which they used to
express the idea "ugly," meant also "hateful," "vile," "disgraceful"
--and I need hardly point out to you the significance of that
fact alone; for they considered--and rightly--that there is no
sort of natural reason why every denizen of earth should not be
perfectly hale, integral, sane, beautiful--if only very moderate pains
be taken to procure this divine result. One fellow, indeed, called
Nancleidas, grew a little too fat to please the sensitive eyes of the
Spartans: I believe he was periodically whipped. Under a system so very
barbarous, the super-sweet, egoistic voice of the club-footed poet
Byron would, of course, never have been heard: one brief egoistic
"lament" on Taygetus, and so an end. It is not, however, certain that
the world could not have managed very well without Lord Byron. The one
thing that admits of no contradiction is that it cannot manage without
the holy citizen, and that disease, to men and to nations, can have but
one meaning, annihilation near or ultimate. At any rate, from these
remarks, you will now very likely be able to arrive at some
understanding of the wording of the advertisements which I sent to the
papers.'

Zaleski, having delivered himself of this singular _tirade_, paused:
replaced the sepulchral relief in its niche: drew a drapery of silver
cloth over his bare feet and the hem of his antique garment of Babylon:
and then continued:

'After some time the answer to the advertisement at length arrived; but
what was my disgust to find that it was perfectly unintelligible to me.
I had asked for a date and an address: the reply came giving a date,
and an address, too--but an address wrapped up in cypher, which, of
course, I, as a supposed member of the society, was expected to be able
to read. At any rate, I now knew the significance of the incongruous
circumstance that the Latin proverb _mens sana etc._ should be adopted
as the motto of a Greek society; the significance lay in this, that the
motto _contained an address_--the address of their meeting-plac