Essays on Life 



sculptor's having taken both his general ar- 

 rangement and his details from some picture 

 of the fourteenth or fifteenth century, when 

 the value of the strictest historical accuracy 

 was not yet so fully understood. 



It seems to me that in the matter of accu- 

 racy, priests and men of science whether lay 

 or regular on the one hand, and plain people 

 whether lay or regular on the other, are trying 

 to play a different game, and fail to under- 

 stand one another because they do not see 

 that their objects are not the same. The 

 cleric and the man of science (who is only the 

 cleric in his latest development) are trying to 

 develop a throat with two distinct passages 

 one that shall refuse to pass even the smallest 

 gnat, and another that shall gracefully gulp 

 even the largest camel ; whereas we men of 

 the street desire but one throat, and are con- 

 tent that this shall swallow nothing bigger 

 than a pony. Every one knows that there 

 is no such effectual means of developing the 

 power to swallow camels as incessant watch- 

 fulness for opportunities of straining at gnats, 



and this should explain many passages that 



130 



