"'Sed quid Typhœus et validus Mimas
Contra sonantem Palladis ægida… ?'"
"'Sed quid Typhœus et validus Mimas
Contra sonantem Palladis ægida… ?'"
"The Gothic builders, like the Titans, might strain to pile Pelion on Olympus. Vis consili expers, my lord. From the moment they take down their scaffolding—nay, while it is yet standing—the dissolution begins. All their complicated structure of weights, counterweights, thrusts, balances, has started an internecine conflict, stone warring against stone, the whole disintegrating—"
"Excuse me, Brother—"
"Copas, my lord."
"Excuse me, Brother Copas," said the Bishop with a smile, "if I do not quite see to what practical conclusion we are tending."
"There is a moral ahead, my lord.… Thanks to Mr. Colt's zeal, we have all begun to aspire along our different lines, with the result that St. Hospital has become a house divided against itself. Now, if I may say it modestly, I think your lordship's suggestion an excellent one. We are old poor men—what business have we, any longer, with aspiration? It is time for us to cease from pushing and thrusting at each other's souls; time for us to imitate the Greek beam, and practise lying flat.… I vote for the truce, my lord; and when the time comes, shall vote for extending it."
"You have so odd a way of putting it, Brother—er—Copas," his lordship mildly expostulated, "that I hardly recognise as mine the suggestion you are good enough to commend."
Brother Copas's eye twinkled.
"Ah, my lord! It has been the misfortune of my life to follow Socrates humbly as a midwife of men's ideas, and be accused of handing them back as changelings."