stern warning in the market-place. Zola, we all know, aspires as much to be a teacher as George Eliot. His methods are different, to be sure, but the directing principle is the same. He can neither amuse nor please, but he can and will instruct. "When I have once shown you," he seems to say, "every known detail of every known sin,—and the list, it must be confessed, is a long one,—you will then be glad to walk purely on your appointed path. You will remember what I have described to you, and be cautious." But it may fairly be doubted whether the Spartan boys, whose anxious fathers exhibited to them the drunken Helots sprawling swine-like in the sun, were quite as deeply shocked at the sight as classical history would give us to understand. There are some old-fashioned lines by an old-fashioned poet to the effect that the ugliness of Vice is no especial detriment to her seductions, if we will only look at her often enough to forget it. Probably those Spartan lads, after a few educational experiments, began to think that the Helots, in their reeking filth and bestiality, were rather interesting studies; were experiencing
