Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Atlantic Essays

[290] in his mind, forth from the fragrant and lofty chamber came Helen, like Artemis of the golden distaff. For her Adrasta immediately placed a well-made seat, and Alcippe brought tapestry of soft wool, and Phylo brought a silver basket, ... the lips finished with gold,.... filled with well-dressed thread; and upon it the distaff was stretched, containing violet-colored wool. And she sat on the seat, and the footstool was beneath her feet, and she straightway inquired everything of her husband with words.

“ Do we know, O thou heavenly nurtured Menelaus, what men these are who take refuge in our house? Shall I be saying falsely or speak the truth? Yet my mind exhorts me. I say that I have never seen any man or woman so like (reverence possesses me as I behold him) as he is like unto Telemachus, the son of magnanimous Odysseus, whom that man left an infant in his house, when ye Grecians came to Troy on account of me immodest, waging fierce war.” Her answering, said auburn-haired Menelaus, “ So now I too am thinking, my wife, as thou dost conjecture.”

What a quiet sagacity she shows, and what a position of accustomed equality! So the interview goes on, till the hostess finally mixes them something good to drink, and then they go to rest, and there in a recess of the lofty house “lies long-robed Helen, a divine one among women!”

The same stateliness of tone, with finer spiritual touches, may be found throughout the Greek tragedies. The Alcestis and Antigone are world-renowned delineations of noble and tender womanhood, and there are many companion pictures. I know not where in literature to look for a lovelier touch of feminine feeling,--a trait more unlike those portrayed by Thackeray, for instance,--than in