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The outcome of it all had been that the rector left him with a sense of having crossed barriers forbidden to other men, and not understanding how he had crossed them. If Eldon Parr were Procrustes he, Hodder, had fitted the bed, and to say the least, this was extraordinary, if not a little disquieting. Now and again his thoughts reverted to the garden, and to the woman who had made it.
"He is an informer and a tormentor!" broke in Anthony harshly. "Well, sir; let us say that he is very loyal to the letter of the law; and that he presides over our Protestant bed of Procrustes." "The " began Marjorie, emboldened by the kindness of the priest's voice. "The bed of Procrustes, madam, was a bed to which all who lay upon it had to be conformed.
"And who are you, young man?" said the king. "I am Theseus," was the answer. "What? the Theseus who has rid the world of the mountain robbers, and of Cercyon the wrestler, and of Procrustes, the pitiless Stretcher?" "I am he," said Theseus; "and I come from old Troezen, on the other side of the Saronic Sea." The king started and turned very pale. "Troezen! Troezen!" he cried.
But yesterday he brought up hither a young man and a maiden, and fitted them upon his bed: and the young man's hands and feet he cut off; but the maiden's limbs he stretched until she died, and so both perished miserably but I am tired of weeping over the slain. And therefore he is called Procrustes the stretcher, though his father called him Damastes. Flee from him: yet whither will you flee?
He offered to pay all the bills for the sham Procrustes, or to replace the blank copies with the real thing, as we might choose. Of course, after such an insult, the club did not care for the poem. He was permitted to pay the expense, however, and it was more than hinted to him that his resignation from the club would be favorably acted upon.
Travellers, I believe, are not now so much infested on the roads by robbers as formerly, deterred, I suppose, by the fate of Sinnis, Scyron, Procrustes, and the rest of that gang. What then?
She was conscious of no reasoning, of no mental protest which could be put into words: she was only conscious of emotions which now shook her with their power, now left her starkly cold, her brain muffled, or again aflame with a suffering as intense as that of Procrustes on his bed of iron. This it was that seized her now. The glance of his eyes at her bared breast roused her.
Society was the Procrustes which, like the Greek bandit of old, caught every man born into the world, and endeavored to fit him to some preconceived standard, generally to the one for which he was least adapted. The world was full of men and women who were merely square pegs in round holes, and vice versa. Most marriages were unhappy because the contracting parties were not properly mated.
He was a robber who slew men cruelly by tying them to strong branches of trees and letting the branches fly apart. On him Theseus had no mercy. The second was a robber also, Procrustes: he had a great iron bed on which he made his captives lie; if they were too long for that bed he chopped pieces off them, and if they were too short he stretched out their bodies with terrible racks.
Upon resolution, offered by a member who had not subscribed for the volume, a committee of three was appointed to review the Procrustes at the next literary meeting of the club. Of this committee it was my doubtful fortune to constitute one. In pursuance of my duty in the premises, it of course became necessary for me to read the Procrustes.
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