Essays on Life 



me than he began puzzling me, as he has done 

 any time this forty years, to know wherein 

 his transcendent merit can be supposed to 

 lie. To me he is, like the greater number of 

 classics in all ages and countries, a literary 

 Struldbrug, rather than a true ambrosia-fed 

 immortal. There are true immortals, but 

 they are few and far between ; most classics 

 are as great impostors dead as they were 

 when living, and while posing as gods are, 

 five-sevenths of them, only Struldbrugs. It 

 comforts me to remember that Aristophanes 

 liked ^Eschylus no better than I do. True, 

 he praises him by comparison with Sophocles 

 and Euripides, but he only does so that he 

 may run down these last more effectively. 

 Aristophanes is a safe man to follow, nor do 

 I see why it should not be as correct to laugh 

 with him as to pull a long face with the 

 Greek Professors ; but this is neither here nor 

 there, for no one really cares about JEschylus ; 

 the more interesting question is how he con- 

 trived to make so many people for so many 

 years pretend to care about him. 



Perhaps he married somebody's daughter. 



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