perfectly willing to recognise its spots and moons to your satisfaction, if you will permit me to recognise my own favourite in the garb of grief.
Hera.
My bird was ever a masquerader—it may be so.
Eros.
Psyche, also, was not unaccustomed to disguises.
Hera.
You take the recollection coolly, Eros.
Eros.
Would you have me shriek and moan? Would you have me throw myself in convulsive ecstasy upon that ambiguous insect? You are not the first, Hera, who has gravely misunderstood my character. I am not, I have never been, a victim of the
impulsive passions. The only serious misunderstandings which I have ever had with my illustrious mother have resulted from her lack of comprehension of this fact. She is impulsive, if you will! Her existence has been a succession of centrifugal adventures, in which her sole idea has been to hurl herself outward from the solitude of her individuality. I, on the other hand, leave very rarely, and with peculiar reluctance, the rock-crystal tower from which I watch the world, myself unavoidable and unattainable. My arrows penetrate every disguise, every species of physical and spiritual armour, but they are not turned against my own heart. I have always been graceful and inconspicuous in my attitudes. The image of Eros, with contorted shoulders and projected elbows, aiming a shaft at himself, is one which the Muse of Sculpture would shudder to contemplate.