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Updated: May 20, 2025
He had reason to rejoice; for he had passed through the valley of the shadow of death. He had seen, very near, that dread presence before which the angels of faith and love can avail nothing. Fearless as Alcides had he gone down to the realms of darkness; triumphant and glad as the demigod he returned from the under-world, bearing his precious burden in his strong arms.
And not as master and servant but as "between man and man," wherefore Baxter the Valet became merged and lost in Baxter the Human, the honest John of the old days, a gray haired, kindly-eyed, middle-aged cosmopolitan who listened to, and looked at, Young Alcides beside him as if he had indeed been the Master George, of years ago.
The poet Schiller, in one of his pieces called the "Ideal and Life," illustrates the contrast between the practical and the imaginative in some beautiful stanzas, of which the last two may be thus translated: "Deep degraded to a coward's slave, Endless contests bore Alcides brave, Through the thorny path of suffering led; Slew the Hydra, crushed the lion's might, Threw himself, to bring his friend to light, Living, in the skiff that bears the dead.
Afraid to draw back within the reach of his weapon, I threw myself on him, and grappled to his throat. We rolled on the earth together; it was but a moment's struggle. Strong as I was even in boyhood, the Helot would have been a match for Alcides. A shade passed over my eyes; my breath heaved short. The slave was kneeling on my breast, and, dropping the club, he drew a short knife from his girdle.
An intimacy of the most confidential nature thus sprang up between the milliner and the chief of the kitchen; but I do not know whether it was with pleasure or mortification that Madame received the declarations of friendship which the young Alcides proffered to her, for he persisted in calling her "La respectable Fribsbi," "La vertueuse Fribsbi," and in stating that he should consider her as his mother, while he hoped she would regard him as her son.
"Like that which greeted Alcides, when he stormed the gates of Tartarus," said Gunther, smiling. "You are right. The work is worthy of Alcides, but with the blessing of God it shall be done. Little care I for the wail of nuns or the groans of priests; let them shriek and tear their hair, or, if they like it better, let them vent their spleen in lampoons and caricatures.
Alcides broke forth in anger, and with a bound hurled himself sheer amid the flames, where the smoke rolls billowing and voluminous, and the cloud surges black through the enormous den. Straightway the doors are torn open and the dark house laid plain; the stolen oxen and forsworn plunder are shewn forth to heaven, and the misshapen carcase dragged forward by the feet.
Such were the birds Alcides did subdue, That from his conquering arm t'ward Heaven flew: Such sure the harpyes were which poyson strow'd, On cheated Phineus's false deluding food. Loud lamentations shake the trembling air, The powers above the wild confusion share, Horrours disturb the orders of the sky, And frighted stars beyond their courses fly.
The all-sweeping besom of societarian reformation your only modern Alcides' club to rid the time of its abuses is uplift with many-handed sway to extirpate the last fluttering tatters of the bugbear MENDICITY from the metropolis. Scrips, wallets, bags staves, dogs, and crutches the whole mendicant fraternity with all their baggage are fast posting out of the purlieus of this eleventh persecution.
Pen; and darting upon the Frenchman, he would very likely have put his threat into execution, for the window was at hand, and the artist by no means a match for the young gentleman had not Captain Broadfoot and another heavy officer flung themselves between the combatants, had not the ladies begun to scream, had not the fiddles stopped, had not the crowd of people come running in that direction, had not Laura, with a face of great alarm, looked over their heads and asked for Heaven's sake what was wrong, had not the opportune Strong made his appearance from the refreshment-room, and found Alcides grinding his teeth and jabbering oaths in his Galleon French, and Pen looking uncommonly wicked, although trying to appear as calm as possible, when the ladies and the crowd came up.
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