James F. Clarke said that the Christian serpent was quite another thing.
Everybody laughed at the idea of a Christian serpent.
William White professed great admiration for the reptile. We should have had no Christianity but for its beguiling.
Margaret agreed!—and said she supposed everybody felt that.
Mrs. Russell thought the casting of the skin very expressive.
James F. Clarke gave Coleridge’s exposition, to the effect that the serpent was the common understanding! It would touch and handle all things, and even sought to be as the Gods, knowing good from evil. Its undulating motion—its belly now on the ground, now off—expressed both the aspiration and the subserviency of the creature.
Margaret asked if serpents ever swallowed their own tails?
Charles Wheeler said that must be an arbitrary form.
Margaret replied, that she had been struck by the difference between the Mexican and the Greek serpent. The Mexican was folded back upon itself.
Not always, I said. Its tail is sometimes in its mouth, and the variations seem to be occasioned by the architectural necessity.