Nymph, who finding herself beloved by Phoebus, instead of
reverently and silently returning the affection, boasted of it to
all her neighbours, as a token of her own beauty, and despised the
god; so that he, being angry, changed her into a chattering magpie;
or again to Arachne, who having been taught the art of weaving by
Athene, pretended to compete with her own instructress, and being
metamorphosed by her into a spider, was condemned, like the
sophists, to spin out of her own entrails endless ugly webs, which
are destroyed, as soon as finished, by every slave-girl's broom."

P. "But shall we despise and hate such, Oh Socrates?"

S. "No, dearest boy, we will rather pity and instruct them
lovingly; remembering always that we shall become such as they the
moment we begin to fancy that truth is our own possession, and not
the very beauty of Zeus himself, which he shows to those whom he
will, and in such measure as he finds them worthy to behold. But to
me, considering how great must be the condescension of Zeus in
unveiling to any man, even the worthiest, the least portion of his
own loveliness, there has come at times a sort of dream, that the
divine splendour will at last pierce through and illumine all dark
souls, even in the house of Hades, showing them, as by a great
sunrise, both what they themselves, and what all other things are,
really and in the sight of Zeus; which if it happened, even to
Ixion, I believe that his wheel would stop, and his fetters drop off
of themselves, and that he would return freely to the upper air, for
as long as he himself might choose."

Just then the people began to throng into the Pnyx; and we took our
places with the rest to hear the business of the day, after Socrates
had privately uttered this prayer:

"Oh Zeus, give to me and to all who shall counsel here this day,
that spirit of truth by which we may behold that whereof we
deliberate, as it is in thy sight!"

"As I expected," said Templeton, with a smile, as I folded up my
manuscript. "My friend the parson could not demolish the poor
Professor's bad logic without a little professional touch by way of
finish."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh-never mind. Only I owe you little thanks for sweeping away any
one of my lingering sympathies with Mr. Windrush, if all you can
offer me instead is the confounded old nostrum of religion over
again."

"Heydey, friend! What next?"

"Really, my dear fellow, I beg your pardon, I f