Indulge Genio: carpamus dulcia: nostrum¹ est           Quod vivis: cinis, et manes, et fabula fies.
          Vive memor lethi: fugit hora: hoc quod loquor, inde est.
          Persius.
 
          Indulge thy Genius, while the hour's thine own:
          Even while we speak, some part of it has flown.
          Snatch the swift-passing good: 'twill end ere long
          In dust and shadow, and an old wife's song.
'Agapetus and Agapêtê,' said the Reverend Doctor Opimian, the next morning at breakfast, 'in the best sense of the words: that, I am satisfied, is the relation between this young gentleman and his handmaids.'
 
__Mrs. Opimian.__ Perhaps, doctor, you will have the goodness to make your view of this relation a little more intelligible³ to me.
 
The Rev². Dr. Opimian. Assuredly, my dear. The word signifies 'beloved' in its purest sense. And in this sense it was used by Saint Paul in reference to some of his female co-religionists and fellow-labourers in the vineyard, in whose houses he occasionally dwelt. And in this sense it was applied⁴ to virgins⁵ and holy men, who dwelt under the same roof in spiritual love.
 
Mrs. Opimian. Very likely, indeed. You are a holy man, doctor, but I think, if you were a bachelor, and I were a maid, I should not trust myself to be your aga—aga—
 
The Rev. Dr. Opimian. Agapêtê. But I never pretended to this sort of spiritualism. I followed the advice of Saint Paul, who says it is better to marry.
 
Mrs. Opimian. You need not finish the quotation⁶.
 
The Rev. Dr. Opimian. Agapêtê is often translated 'adoptive sister.' A very possible relation, I think, where there are vows⁷ of celibacy⁸, and inward spiritual grace.
 
Mrs. Opimian. Very possible, indeed: and equally possible where there are none.
 
The Rev. Dr. Opimian. But more possible where there are seven adoptive sisters, than where there is only one.
 
Mrs. Opimian. Perhaps.
 
The Rev. Dr. Opimian. The manners, my dear, of these damsels towards their young master are infallible indications of the relations between them. Their respectful deference⁹ to him is a symptom in which I cannot be mistaken.
 
Mrs. Opimian. I hope you are not.
 
The Rev. Dr. Opimian. I am sure I am not. I would stake all my credit for observation and experience on the purity of the seven Vestals. I am not strictly¹⁰ accurate in calling them so: for in Rome the number of Vestals was only six. But there were seven Pleiads, till one disappeared. We may fancy she became a seventh Vestal. Or as the planets used to be seven, and are now more than fifty, we may pass a seventh Vestal in the name of modern progress.
 
Mrs. Opimian. There used to be seven deadly sins. How many has modern progress added to them?
 
The Rev. Dr. Opimian. None, I hope, my dear. But this will be due, not to its own tendencies, but to the comprehensiveness of the old definitions.
 
Mrs. Opimian. I think I have heard something like your Greek word before.
 
The Rev. Dr. Opimian. Agapêmonê, my dear. You may have heard the word Agapêmonê.
 
Mrs. Opimian. That is it. And what may it signify?
 
The Rev. Dr. Opimian. It signifies Abode¹¹ of Love: spiritual love of course.
 
Mrs. Opimian. Spiritual love, which rides in carriages and four, fares sumptuously¹², like Dives, and protects itself with a high wall from profane¹³ observation.
 
The Rev. Dr. Opimian. Well, my dear, and there may be no harm in all that.
 
Mrs. Opimian. Doctor, you are determined¹⁴ not to see harm in anything.
 
The Rev. Dr. Opimian. I am afraid I see more harm in many things than I like to see. But one reason for not seeing harm in this Agapêmonâ matter is, that I hear so little about it The world is ready enough to promulgate¹⁵ scandal; but that which is quietly right may rest in peace.
 
Mrs. Opimian. Surely, doctor, you do not think this Agapemone right?
 
The Rev. Dr. Opimian. I only say I do not know whether it is right or wrong. It is nothing new. Three centuries ago there was a Family of Love, on which Middleton wrote a comedy. Queen Elizabeth persecuted¹⁶ this family; Middleton made it ridiculous; but it outlived them both, and there may have been no harm in it after all.
 
Mrs. Opimian. Perhaps, doctor, the world is too good to see any novelty except in something wrong.
 
The Rev. Dr. Opimian. Perhaps it is only wrong that arrests attention, because right is common, and wrong is rare. Of the many thousand persons who walk daily through a street you only hear of one who has been robbed or knocked down. If ever Hamlet's news—'that the world has grown honest'—should prove true, there would be an end of our newspaper. For, let us see, what is the epitome¹⁷ of a newspaper? In the first place, specimens¹⁸ of all the deadly sins, and infinite varieties of violence and fraud; a great quantity of talk, called by courtesy legislative¹⁹ wisdom, of which the result is 'an incoherent and undigested mass of law, shot down, as from a rubbish-cart, on the heads of the people ';{1} lawyers barking at each other in that peculiar

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