“Yes,” said Margaret, “and in that lies the merit of Mythology. Every faculty was, according to that, an incomplete statement. Therefore Mr. Ripley did wrong to confound Minerva with the Logos.”
E. P. P. did not see that Berkeley’s statement was answered.
William Story came in with another pun. “If Berkeley thought so, it was no matter!”
Some stupid person spoiled the wit by trying to explain it, and the question remained to us just as much matter as ever.
They talked about the Sphinx again, yet said little. It holds more meaning in its passive womb than talk will ever play the midwife to. It was the child of the Destructive Element and Feeling,—Typhon and Echidna,—the human heart experienced in misfortune touched by death. Thought rooted in the actual and developed by tenderness was rooted in this figure.
“Everybody knows that Wisdom stings,” said Margaret, and so we went on to the serpent.
Somebody spoke of the Greek Tartarus.
Ida Russell thought its torment was not acute, but consisted of the deprivation of comforts.
The wandering idleness of it would be intolerable to an active Greek, Elisabeth Hoar thought, but more endurable than any device of a priesthood. As for our serpent, no one seemed to know much about it.
Margaret said that we owed it so much, that she felt in duty bound to know something of it.