Jupiter.  Your reception from these professed lovers of wisdom, my daughter, was, no doubt, all that could be expected.

Truth.  It was all that could be expected, my father, from learned and virtuous men, who had already framed their own systems of the universe without consulting me.

Jupiter.  You probably next addressed yourself to the middling orders of society?

Truth.  I can scarcely say that I did, father; for although I had much to remark concerning their want of culture, and their servility, and their greed, and the absurdity of many of their customs, and the rottenness of most of their beliefs, and the thousand ways in which they spoiled lives that might have been beautiful and harmonious, I soon discovered that they were so absolutely swayed by the example of the higher orders that it was useless to expostulate with them until I should have persuaded the latter.

Jupiter.  You returned, then, to the latter with this design?

Truth.  On the contrary, I hastened to the poor and needy, whom I fully acquainted with the various wrongs and oppressions which they underwent at the hands of the powerful and the rich.  And here, for the first time, I found myself welcome.  All listened with gratitude and assent, and none made any endeavour to stone me or imprison me, as those other unprincipled persons had done.

Jupiter.  That was indeed satisfactory, daughter.  But when you proceeded to point out to these plebeians how much of their misery arose from their own idleness, and ignorance, and dissoluteness, and abasement before those higher in station, and jealousy of the best among themselves—­what said they to that?

Truth.  They expressed themselves desirous of killing me, and indeed would have done so if my capital enemies, the priests, had not been beforehand with them.

Jupiter.  What did they?

Truth.  Burned me.

Jupiter.  Burned you?

Truth.  Burned me in the market-place.  And, but for my peculiar property of reviving from my ashes, I should not be here now.  Upon reconsolidating myself, I felt in such a heat that I was fain to repair to the bottom of the nearest well.  Finding myself more comfortable there than I had ever yet been on earth, I have come to ask permission to remain.

Jupiter.  It does not appear to me, daughter, that the mission you have undertaken on behalf of mankind can be efficiently discharged at the bottom of a well.

Truth.  No, father, nor in the middle of a fire either.

Jupiter.  I fear that you are too plain and downright in your dealings with men, and deter where you ought to allure.

Truth.  I were not Truth, else, but Flattery.  My nature is a mirror’s—­to exhibit reality with plainness and faithfulness.

Jupiter.  It is no less the nature of man to shatter every mirror that does not exhibit to him what he wishes to behold.