sleep, and while asleep he is carried beyond the limits of the Olympian realm, and is left outside to live the life of a man. But though he forgets a great deal—as, for example, how to find his way back—he is left with the memory of his former existence. That is his punishment. After his death, however, he is forgiven and returns to Olympus again."
I stared at my brother, but his calm assurance, and the faith I had in him, made me implicitly believe him—and to-day I think he really more than half believed it himself.
After this I was not surprised to have him tell me that the gods of Greece were not dead, but forced to retire on the mountains of Olympus, because Christianity had to come first. "You see, little one, you will presently learn the Old Testament, as you are now being taught the New—and as I am teaching you Mythology. You will find out, as you grow older, that you need all three to balance things up."
From him I heard not only the names of the great Greek writers, but he read to me by the hour from them. At first they were very hard to understand, since the Greek we speak is so much simpler than the Greek of Aristophanes and Sophocles; but since, after all, it is the same language, I learned to recite it pretty well before even I knew how to read and write.
It was from my brother, too, that I learned to
