’Her apparent purpose seems almost inevitably thwarted by some influence—­shall we call it malign? or rather shall we consider (as perhaps we should in all short-comings) that ’tis only a matter of time and the comparative degree? a piece of circuition needed for variety of development, and, of necessity, to eventuate in forms fresher, more prononces, nearer perfect than any thing we now wot or conceive of.

’To my thinking, the hitch is, that just at this point, she has got complicated with the wills and motions of intelligences already individualized and eliminated, and forever alienated from her immediate impulse.  And if this be so, depend on it, the onus of the attempted perfection comes a good deal upon us.  The mighty Mother, unsatisfied in her fantastic longings, and troubled generally [Greek:  dia to tiktein], should be helped and not bothered by her children.  We can remove vexations, can arrange conditions, keep the house quiet generally.  At any rate, we can take such care as may be of the smaller young ones, help them up-stairs, or at least keep them from tumbling down again—­we bigger babies that have crawled or been pushed a few steps up the awful stairway of the Inconceivable Ascending-Spiral.’

‘I say, Dick, stop your metaphysics.’

’You are quite right, Tom, they are threadbare enough; but these happen to be physics.  I don’t mean such as you had to take last week, after that sleigh-ride.  Well, I remember feeling this intense communism, this voltaic rapport with nature in a like way once before, on seeing a covey of strange creatures, Aztecs, Albinos, wild Africans, busied, by chance, in a game of romps together, the pure overflow of animal spirits.  It was a curious scene.  They made eerie faces at each other; they feigned assaults; they wove a maze, more fantastic and bizarre than any thing in Faust or Freysehutz.  It was the mirth of Fauns, the mischief of Elves and Brownies.  The glee, that lighted up those strange faces was not of this earth; but a thrill, pulsated through infinitude, of that joy of life which wells forever from the exhaustless fountain of the Central Heart; a scintillation, from how afar off! of the Immeasurable Love, of the Eternal Pity; though it seemed hardly more human than the play of kits and puppies, or than the anerithmon gelasma (the soulless, uncontrollable titter) of the tossed spring spray, or the blue, breezy ripple, for which overhaul your Prometheus, master Tom, and when found, make a note of it.’

‘Well, that’s not so bad,’ allowed Hepsibah, a good deal mollified.  Greek, I have observed, always has an excellent effect upon her.

‘And it has a good moral, my dears,’ said grandmother, ’I always like a good moral.’

‘And was the bear always good to him?’

’Well, my dear, I am sorry to say that he had once bitten off three of his fingers.  You may think this was proceeding to extremities; but, on the whole, I give him credit for great moderation.  They will bite sometimes, however—­me teste, who once in my proper person verified the old proverb, which I had always taken for a bit of unnatural history.’