behind;[33] but one and all must follow her."

[33] Al. "will suffer her to be forsaken."

And my wife made answer to me: "It would much astonish me (said she)
did not these leader's works, you speak of, point to you rather than
myself. Methinks mine would be a pretty[34] guardianship and
distribution of things indoors without your provident care to see that
the importations from without were duly made."

[34] Or, "ridiculous."

"Just so," I answered, "and mine would be a pretty[35] importation if
there were no one to guard what I imported. Do you not see," I added,
"how pitiful is the case of those unfortunates who pour water in their
sieves for ever, as the story goes,[36] and labour but in vain?"

[35] "As laughable an importation."

[36] Or, "how pitiful their case, condemned, as the saying goes, to
pour water into a sieve." Lit. "filling a bucket bored with
holes." Cf. Aristot. "Oec." i. 6; and for the Danaids, see Ovid.
"Met." iv. 462; Hor. "Carm." iii. 11. 25; Lucr. iii. 937; Plaut.
"Pseud." 369. Cp. Coleridge:

Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And hope without an object cannot live.

"Pitiful enough, poor souls," she answered, "if that is what they do."