fashioned the natures of women: if there were one level of feminine incompetence as strict as the ability to count three and no more, the social lot of women might be treated with scientific certitude."
The fact, however, that "Here and there is born a Saint
Theresa, foundress of nothing," is not an irony of fate so
much as a folly of society. Later in the story the philosophizing
of one of the characters leads the author to the
reflection:
"Some gentlemen have made an amazing figure in literature
by general discontent with the universe as a trap of dulness into
which their great souls have fallen by mistake; but the sense
of a stupendous self and an insignificant world may have its
consolations."
Nay, the metaphysician himself does not altogether escape.
Piero de Cosimo is accused of being one and repudiates
the idea:[1]
"Not I, Messer Greco; a philosopher is the last sort of animal
I should choose to resemble. I find it enough to live, without
spinning lies to account for life. Fowls cackle, asses bray,
women chatter, and philosophers spin false reasons—that's the
effect the sight of the world brings out of them."
This perception of the Idol of the Cave, and the whole
trend of Eliot's argument is evidence that the pragmatic
attitude existed some time before it was so vividly and
enduringly defined by Professor James.
Since these various changes bring about no complete break with the satiric tradition, we may expect to find the connecting links with both the remote and the immediate past as much in evidence as are the features of novelty. Peacock's indebtedness was to the Athenian com-*
- ↑ Romola, I, 287.
