Mrs. Russell asked suddenly why Apollo’s lyre had seven strings.
Margaret said seven was a consecrated number.
Mrs. Russell asked if it did not have to do with the seven planets?
George Ripley said there were not so many in that day.
Margaret liked the reason, and wished she had thought of it herself!
Some one asked about the connection between Diana and Apollo.
Margaret said that Genius needed a sister to console him.
Emerson asked what bearing the inscription over the Delphic temple had upon the story of Apollo,—the Divine pun EI, which means equally “Thou art” and “If,”—as grand a pun as that of him who, dying, said he was going to see the great “Perhaps”!—“le grand peut-être.”
Better translated, I thought, as the great “May-be.”