seeks to tell fortunes by the cards, and, in your time, resorted to
the sorceress with her magical "bull-roarer" or turndun. {6}

Yes, Lucian, we are the same vain creatures of doubt and dread, of
unbelief and credulity, of avarice and pretence, that you knew, and
at whom you smiled. Nay, our very "social question" is not altered.
Do you not write, in "The Runaways," "The artisans will abandon
their workshops, and leave their trades, when they see that, with
all the labour that bows their bodies from dawn to dark, they make a
petty and starveling pittance, while men that toil not nor spin are
floating in Pactolus"?

They begin to see this again as of yore; but whether the end of
their vision will be a laughing matter, you, fortunate Lucian, do
not need to care. Hail to you, and farewell!



LETTER--To Maitre Francoys Rabelais. Of the coming of the
Coqcigrues.



Master,--In the Boreal and Septentrional lands, turned aside from
the noonday and the sun, there dwelt of old (as thou knowest, and as
Olaus voucheth) a race of men, brave, strong, nimble, and
adventurous, who had no other care but to fight and drink. There,
by reason of the cold (as Virgil witnesseth), men break wine with
axes. To their minds, when once they were dead and gotten to
Valhalla, or the place of their Gods, there would be no other