ine arts. [_To
the_ PRIEST, _with gravity_.] You are a gifted young man. Be sure
that you employ your talents with discretion. Such an intellect as
yours carries responsibility with it. I shall be quite pleased to
permit you to recite "The Rainbow" to me again. [_The_ PRIEST
_prepares to recite it_.]

ZEUS.

Oh, not now! Some other time! [_Graciously dismisses the_ PRIEST.]

ZEUS [_after a long pause_].

The attitude of my family, in these ambiguous circumstances,
is everything that could be desired. My original feeling of
irritability has passed away. I should have supposed it to be
what Pallas calls "fatigue," a confusion or discord of the
nerve-centres, which she tells me is incident to mortality.
What Pallas can possibly know about it is more than I can guess,
especially, as there were not infrequent occasions on Olympus
itself on which my Supreme Godhead was disturbed by flashes of
what I should be forced to describe as exasperation, states of
mind in which I formed--and indeed executed--the sudden project
of breaking something. These were, I believe, simply the result
of an excessive sense of responsibility. I am not one of those
who conceive that the duty of deity is to sit passive beside the
cup of nectar. Here on this island, in the permanent absence of
that refreshment, I reflect (I perceive that I shall have very
frequent opportunities for reflection) that I was perhaps only
too anxious to preserve the harmony of heaven. My sense of
decorum--may it not have been excessive? From below, as I
imagine, from the stations occupied--I will not say by the
inanimate or half-animate creation, such as insects, or men, or
minerals--but by the demi-gods, I take it that the dignity and
orbic beauty of our court appeared sublimely immaculate. In the
inner circle, alas! no one knows better than I do that there
were--well, dissensions. I will go further, in candour to myself,
and admit that these occasionally led to excesses. I cannot
charge my recollection with my having done anything to excuse
or encourage these. The personal conduct of the Sovereign
was always, I cannot but believe, above reproach. But the
eccentricities--if I may style them so--of certain of my children
were sometimes regrettable. I wonder that they did not age me;
they would do so immediately in my present condition. But in this
island, where we are to swarm like animalcules in a drop of
water, I shall be relieved of all responsibility. Where the