“For one thing, it is said that the gods created those men who interrupt me in my writing to plague me with just such silly questions.”
“Men naturally seek wisdom from you, ma’am, to whom the whole story of human life is familiar.”
“But the story of human life is not one story. There are three stories of human life.”
“Ah, ah! And what are they?”
“Why, there was once a traveling man who came one night to an inn—”
“I believe I have heard of his indecorous adventures there. So do you spare my blushes, ma’am, and tell me the second story!”
“It seems, then, there were once two Irishmen—”
“That anecdote also, in all conceivable variants, I am quite certain I have heard. So what is the third story?”
“There was once a young married couple. And it seems that on the first night—”
“Yet that story, in a great number of versions, is equally familiar to me. And really, ma’am, I question if these intolerably hackneyed tales sum up all human wisdom.”
“But the young married couple in the outcome got pleasure for their bodies in the service of those two powers which I was just talking about. The Irishmen found an unlooked-for drollness in the mechanics of those two powers, which they preserved in a neat and nicely memorable phrase, getting pleasure for their minds. So, by the way, did the two Jews and the two Scotchmen. And the traveling man, upon the next morning, after those same two powers had obtained their will of him, went away from that inn, traveling nobody knows whither; and so got, through a darker night, unbroken and uncompanioned sleep, unbothered any longer by those powers. Thus these three stories really do sum up all the gains which it is possible for a man to acquire through human living and all the wisdom that it is salutary for any man to know about.”
“Well, that is as it may be! I am persuaded that in the goal of all the gods there is a more august power than any which men know of hereabouts assuredly. For I note the sympathy and compassion and love and self-denial which human beings display toward one another, after all, rather copiously. I reflect that every art is a form of self-expression. And I deduce that the artist who created human beings was prompted in his embodiment of all these qualities by sheer egotism. He observed these qualities in his own nature: he approved of them: and so he embodied them. No actually reflective person, therefore, will ever imagine that human life does not go forward toward some kindly winding-up, since none who finds philanthropy in his own heart can doubt that philanthropy exists in the heart of his creator.”
“And does that stuff which you are now talking really seem to you,” the Sphinx asked, “sensible?”
“My dear lady, it seems to me something far better: it seems to me a rather beautiful idea. So I play with it sometimes. Now I dismiss that idea, out of deference to your proverbial wisdom: and I ask what far more gratifying and uplifting wisdom, ma’am, you may be writing in your black-covered book?”
“Oh, yes, my book!” said the Sphinx, with the livelier interest natural to an author. “You find me just now in some difficulty with my book. You conceive there has to be an opening paragraph. It would not be possible to leave out the first paragraph—”
“I can see that. I can recall no book in which there was not a first paragraph.”
“—And this paragraph ought to sum up all things, so to speak—”
“That likewise is a familiar rhetorical principle—”
“—And it is with the composition of this paragraph that I am just now having trouble.”
“Well, you could not possibly have consulted a more suitable person. I, too, used to dabble in the little art of letters before I became a god with four aspects. I am familiar with all rhetorical devices. I am a past master of zeugma and syllepsis; at hypallage, and chiasmus also, I excel; and my handling of meiosis and persiflage and oxymoron has been quite generally admired. So do you read me your rough draft: and I have no doubt I can arrange all difficulties for you.”
The Sphinx for a moment considered this suggestion, and, before the prospect of a connoisseur’s efficient criticism, the monster seemed rather shy.
“Do not be vexed unduly,” the Sphinx then said, “if you can find no meaning in this paragraph—”
“I shall not be excessively censorious, I assure you. No beginner is expected to excel in any art.”
“—For this paragraph was placed here simply because there happened to be a vacancy which needed filling—”
“I quite understand that. So let us get on!”
But there was no hurrying the diffident Sphinx. “The foolish, therefore,” the Sphinx continued in shy explanation, “will find in it foolishness, and will say ‘Bother!’ The wise, as wisdom goes, will reflect that this paragraph was placed here without its consent being asked; that no wit nor large significance was loaned it by its creator; and that it will be forgotten with the turning of the one page wherein it figures unimportantly—”
“No doubt it will be!” said Gerald, now speaking a little impatiently, “but let us get on to this famous paragraph!”
“—So do you turn the page forthwith, in just the care-free fashion of old nodding Time as he skims over the long book of life: and do you say either ‘Bother!’ or ‘Brother!’ as your wits prompt.”
“I will, I assure you, the moment your book is published. But why do you keep talking about your paragraph? why do you not read me what you have written?”
“I have just done so,” replied the Sphinx. “I have not been talking. I have been reading ever since I said, ‘Do you not be vexed’ and now I have read you the whole paragraph.”
Gerald said, “Oh!” He scratched his long chin a bit blankly. He approached the monster, and leaning over one forepaw, he read for himself in that black ledger the paragraph of the Sphinx. Then Gerald said, “But what comes next?”
“Were I to answer that question you would be wiser than I. And of course nobody can ever be wiser than the Sphinx.”
“But is that as far as you have yet written?”
“It is as far as anybody has written,” said the Sphinx, “as yet.”
“In all these centuries you have not got beyond that one paragraph?”
“Now, do you not see my difficulty? I needed an opening paragraph which would sum up all things, so to speak, and all the human living which men keep pestering me to explain. And when I had written it there was not anything left over to put in the second paragraph.”
“But, oh, dear me! This is materialism! this is flat sacrilege committed in the actual presence of a god! I am embarrassed, ma’am. I hardly know which way to look before the spectacle of such conduct. For you fill your page, with your ambiguous paragraph—”
“Do you not be vexed unduly if you can find no meaning in this paragraph—”
“—Which has not anything to do with my exalted duties in this world—”
“This paragraph was placed here simply because there happened to be a vacancy which needed filling—”
“But I am not a paragraph, ma’am! I am no less a person, I may tell you in confidence, than Fair-haired Hoo, the Helper and Preserver, the Lord of the Third Truth, the Well-beloved of Heavenly Ones, upon a journey,—quite incognito, and therefore unattended by my customary retinue,—toward my appointed kingdom. And I confess that to my divine mind your writing has not any valid significance—”