The City of Political Distinctio

　　ONE pleasant day in the latter part of eternity1, as the Shades of

　　all the great writers were reposing2 upon beds of asphodel and moly

　　in the Elysian fields, each happy in hearing from the lips of the

　　others nothing but copious3 quotation4 from his own works (for so

　　Jove had kindly5 bedeviled their ears), there came in among them

　　with triumphant6 mien7 a Shade whom none knew. She (for the newcomer

　　showed such evidences of sex as cropped hair and a manly8 stride)

　　took a seat in their midst, and smiling a superior smile explained:

　　"After centuries of oppression I have wrested9 my rights from the

　　grasp of the jealous gods. On earth I was the Poetess of Reform,

　　and sang to inattentive ears. Now for an eternity of honour and

　　glory."

　　But it was not to be so, and soon she was the unhappiest of

　　mortals, vainly desirous to wander again in gloom by the infernal

　　lakes. For Jove had not bedeviled her ears, and she heard from the

　　lips of each blessed Shade an incessant10 flow of quotation from his

　　own works. Moreover, she was denied the happiness of repeating her

　　poems. She could not recall a line of them, for Jove had decreed

　　that the memory of them abide11 in Pluto's painful domain12, as a part

　　of the apparatus13.