be pretty fairly paralleled with the
ordinary anecdote terminating in a repartee or an Irish bull. Such a
retort as the famous "je ne vois pas la necessite" we have all seen
attributed to Talleyrand, to Voltaire, to Henri Quatre, to an anonymous
judge, and so on. But this variety does not in any way make it more
likely that the thing was never said at all. It is highly likely that
it was really said by somebody unknown. It is highly likely that it was
really said by Talleyrand. In any case, it is not any more difficult to
believe that the mot might have occurred to a man in conversation than
to a man writing memoirs. It might have occurred to any of the men I
have mentioned. But there is this point of distinction about it, that
it is not likely to have occurred to all of them. And this is where
the first class of so-called myth differs from the second to which I
have previously referred. For there is a second class of incident
found to be common to the stories of five or six heroes, say to Sigurd,
to Hercules, to Rustem, to the Cid, and so on. And the peculiarity of
this myth is that not only is it highly reasonable to imagine that it
really happened to one hero, but it is highly reasonable to imagine
that it really happened to all of them. Such a story, for instance, is
that of a great man having his strength swayed or thwarted by the
mysterious weakness of a woman. The anecdotal story, the story of
William Tell, is as I have said, popular, because it is peculiar. But
this kind of story, the story of Samson and Delilah of Arthur and
Guinevere, is obviously popular because it is not peculiar. It is
popular as good, quiet fiction is popular, because it tells the truth
about people. If the ruin of Samson by a woman, and the ruin of
Hercules by a woman, have a common legendary origin, it is gratifying
to know that we can also explain, as a fable, the ruin of Nelson by a
woman and the ruin of Parnell by a woman. And, indeed, I have no doubt
whatever that, some centuries hence, the students of folk-lore will
refuse altogether to believe that Elizabeth Barrett eloped with Robert
Browning, and will prove their point up to the hilt by the
unquestionable fact that the whole fiction of the period was full of
such elopements from end to end.

Possibly the most pathetic of all the delusions of the modern students
of primitive belief is the notion they have about the thing they call
anthropomorphism. They believe that primiti