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Updated: June 18, 2025
ACCORDING to an ancient legend, the first man was made by Jupiter, the first bull by Neptune, and the first house by Minerva. On the completion of their labors, a dispute arose as to which had made the most perfect work. They agreed to appoint Momus as judge, and to abide by his decision. Momus, however, being very envious of the handicraft of each, found fault with all.
Without waiting for her reply the Maccabee passed fowls and skin into the hands of Momus who stood near. "Sir," she answered unreadily, with her small hands gripping each other before her and her eyes veiled, "I thank you. It was not the least of my anxieties how we should provide ourselves with food under prohibition and in a country perilous with war. You have made to-morrow easy for us.
The "grave sense" is still further off, and must wait a more fit occasion. As you are skilled in ancient mythology, I pray you to inform me whether there was ever a goddess of nonsense. A god won't serve my purpose. Momus, for instance, is a loud, boisterous, rude, coarse fellow. Leave off the vice-president, &c., in the direction of your letters. Let it be simply A.B. or Colonel B. Tell Mari so.
"No?" the woman said with a meaning that made the pagan shiver. Momus laid goad about his camel. The way continually ascended toward the east; the soil was no longer sandy, but rocky; no longer given up to desolate gardens, but black with groves of cedars and highland shrubs. They swung off a plateau that would have ended in a cliff, down a shaly sheep-path into a wady.
In Mark Twain I found the very man I had expected to see a flower of the wilderness, tinged with the colour of the soil, the man of thought and the man of action rolled into one, humorist and hard-worker, Momus in a felt hat and jack-boots.
"And Momus, my servant," Laodice cried, waking for the first time to the calamity in this blockade, "he can not come back to me?" "No. If he attempts it, he will be captured and put to death." Laodice clasped her hands, while drop by drop the color left her face. "In God's name," she whispered, "what will become of me?" Amaryllis made no answer. "Can can I not go out?"
There was a moment of silence more distressed than embarrassed. Momus dropped his eyes; Keturah looked at her master with moving lips and sudden flushing of color, as if she were on the point of tears. Aquila stared absently out of the arch beyond. Costobarus glanced from one to the other of his company and then went toward the corridor to call his daughter.
The attic, the studio, the restaurant, the café are the accepted symbols of Bohemia. What reader of Henri Murger's "Scenes de la Vie de Bohème" has ever forgotten the Café Momus, where the riotous behaviour of Marcel, Schaunard, Rodolphe, and Colline brought the proprietor to the verge of ruin?
He felt his howdah lurch to one side as some one leaped up beside him; he felt remotely the great grasp of hands on him, which must have been Momus'; the quick military voice of Aquila he heard and then, keen and distinct as a call upon him, the sound of Laodice's tones made sharp with terror. He opened his eyes and saw her, holding him in her arms.
But almost the next instant Momus drew up his mount so suddenly that Laodice was roused. He turned and began to make rapid signs. Laodice half rose as she read them and pressed her hands together. "Seven days!" she exclaimed in dismay. There was silence. Momus made the camel kneel. He dismounted slowly, and began to undo the tent-cloth in a roll beside the howdah.
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