ng among the
Pygmies, like the spire of the tallest cathedral that ever was built,
while they ran about like pismires at his feet; and to think that, in
spite of their difference in size, there were affection and sympathy
between them and him! Indeed, it has always seemed to me that the Giant
needed the little people more than the Pygmies needed the Giant. For,
unless they had been his neighbors and well wishers, and, as we may
say, his playfellows, Antaeus would not have had a single friend in the
world. No other being like himself had ever been created. No creature of
his own size had ever talked with him, in thunder-like accents, face to
face. When he stood with his head among the clouds, he was quite alone,
and had been so for hundreds of years, and would be so forever. Even if
he had met another Giant, Antaeus would have fancied the world not big
enough for two such vast personages, and, instead of being friends with
him, would have fought him till one of the two was killed. But with the
Pygmies he was the most sportive and humorous, and merry-hearted, and
sweet-tempered old Giant that ever washed his face in a wet cloud.

His little friends, like all other small people, had a great opinion of
their own importance, and used to assume quite a patronizing air towards
the Giant.

"Poor creature!" they said one to another. "He has a very dull time of
it, all by himself; and we ought not to grudge wasting a little of our
precious time to amuse him. He is not half so bright as we are, to be
sure; and, for that reason, he needs us to look after his comfort and
happiness. Let us be kind to the old fellow. Why, if Mother Earth had
not been very kind to ourselves, we might all have been Giants too."

On all their holidays, the Pygmies had excellent sport with Antaeus.
He often stretched himself out at full length on the ground, where he
looked like the long ridge of a hill; and it was a good hour's walk,
no doubt, for a short-legged Pygmy to journey from head to foot of the
Giant. He would lay down his great hand flat on the grass, and challenge
the tallest of them to clamber upon it, and straddle from finger to
finger. So fearless were they, that they made nothing of creeping in
among the folds of his garments. When his head lay sidewise on the
earth, they would march boldly up, and peep into the great cavern of his
mouth, and take it all as a joke (as indeed it was meant) when Antaeus
gave a sudden snap of his jaws, as i