Page:The water-babies.djvu/289

THE WATER BABIES {| width=50% align=center
 * -valign=bottom
 * Measles,
 * Famines,
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 * Monks,
 * Quacks,
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 * Scarlatina,
 * Unpaid Bills,
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 * Idols,
 * Tight Stays,
 * -valign=bottom
 * Whooping-coughs,
 * Potatoes,
 * -valign=bottom
 * Popes,
 * Bad Wine,
 * -valign=bottom
 * Wars,
 * Despots,
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 * Peacemongers,
 * Demagogues,
 * -valign=bottom
 * colspan=2|And, worst of all, Naughty Boys and Girls.
 * }

But one thing remained at the bottom of the box, and that was, Hope.

"So Epimetheus got a great deal of trouble, as most men do in this world: but he got the three best things in the world into the bargain—a good wife, and experience, and hope: while Prometheus had just as much trouble, and a great deal more (as you will hear), of his own making; with nothing beside, save fancies spun out of his own brain, as a spider spins her web out of her stomach.

"And Prometheus kept on looking before him so far ahead, that as he was running about with a box of lucifers (which were the only useful things he ever invented, and do as much harm as good), he trod on his own nose, and tumbled down (as most deductive philosophers do), whereby he set the Thames on fire; and they have hardly put it out again yet. So he had to be chained to the top of the mountain, with a vulture by him to give him a peck whenever he stirred, lest he should turn the whole world upside down with his prophecies and his theories. 261