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Study and travel, potent factors in the march of progress, had so enlarged the periphery of Leo's intellectual vision, that she frequently startled her prim aunt, by the enunciation of views much too extended and cosmopolitan to fit that haughty dame's Procrustean limits of "Southern ladyhood". Blessed with a discriminating governess and chaperon, who while fostering a genuine love of the beautiful, had endeavored to guard her pupil from straying into any of those fashionable "art crazes", which in their ephemeral exaggeration approach caricatures of aestheticism, Leo became deeply imbued with the spirit of classic literature and art; and grew especially fond of the study of Greek and Roman architecture.
Not long ago, he could have taken anything from Amy's hand; would it be so simple since the change that had come between them? But this time he was resolute not to undertake three volumes. The advertisements informed him that numbers of authors were abandoning that procrustean system; hopeless as he was, he might as well try his chance with a book which could be written in a few weeks.
Upon his part, in putting forth his own plan, he had taken much pains distinctly to keep out this characteristic, and to have it clearly understood that his proposition was not designed as "a procrustean bed, to which exact conformity was to be indispensable;" it was not the only method, but only a method.
Of any generous outlook on the wider possibilities of human life there is scarcely a trace. His essay is the apotheosis of social mediocrity. By Procrustean methods he would have forced mankind back to the dull levels of Sparta: the opalescent glow of Athenian life was beyond his ken. But perhaps the most curious passage is that in which he preaches against the sin and folly of ambition.
"No," said Mr Paton; "but I have just been caning Evson, a new boy, and the fellow's stubborn obstinacy and unaccountable coolness annoy me exceedingly." "O yes; he's a pupil of mine, I'm sorry to say, and he has never been free from punishment since he came. Even your Procrustean rule seems to fail with him, Paton. What have you been obliged to cane him for?" Mr Paton related Walter's escapade.
Moreover, to obtain Union by stretching all the ancient historical privileges and liberties of the separate provinces upon the Procrustean bed of a single dogma, to look for nationality only in common subjection to an infallible priesthood, to accept a Catechism as the palladium upon which the safety of the State was to depend for all time, and beyond which there was to be no further message from Heaven such was not healthy constitutionalism in the eyes of a great statesman.
Often we spent two hours on eight lines of Homer. The father of literature became a Procrustean, grammatical bed on which we were to be stretched, and it did nearly exterminate every one of us.
There are two extremes to be considered: Copying the title literally and in full, however prolix; and reducing all title-pages, by a Procrustean rule, to what we may call "one-line titles." Who will say that the last form of title does not convey substantially all that is significant of the book, stripped of superfluous verbiage?
It was pleasant to me to look on an ordinary face, and see it light up into a smile, and think with myself: "there is one heart that will judge of me by what I am, and not by a Procrustean dogma."
Now, although as I have said we let reason go at the behest of the nonsenseorship without so much as a word of protest, we do not give up our suppressed desires so easily and without a fight. As a result we see the nonsenseorship in a new light. We feel it more keenly now than ever before. It is revealed as the Procrustean bed which cramps us up until we ache inside.
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