Actaeon

“ Asclepius delighted to wander among the crags and in the ravines of Pelion, gathering herbs and flowers, and studying the habits of birds and beasts. And Actæon had a passion for the woods and the fields, and had ever a pack of swift hounds at his heels, ready for the chase of wild boar or mountain deer.
"When these lads came to me, I saw that I must give to each the food which was best fitted for his needs, and which his mind most craved. Had I dealt with all alike, and taught all the same lessons, I doubt if any would have grown to manhood's full estate. ”

“ Therefore to return to our worthies: the present race of terriers and hounds would starve, were it not for the enchanted Actæon, who has kept the whole pack for many successions of hunting seasons. Actæon has long tracts of rich soil; but had the misfortune in his youth to fall under the power of sorcery, and has been ever since, some parts of the year, a deer, and in some parts a man. While he is a man (such is the force of magic) , he no sooner grows to such a bulk and fatness, but he is again turned into a deer, and hunted till he is lean; upon which he returns to his human shape. ”

“ At the opposite extreme to Actaeon stand forms like Siphonaria and Gadinia, which are probably close links with the Pulmonata (p. 19) . The generative system of the whole group, which is, as in the Basommatophora, of the hermaphrodite type, without mutual fecundation, is another link of connexion with the Pulmonata. The respiratory organs present the most varied forms, sometimes consisting of one ctenidium (never two) , sometimes of secondary branchiae, variously placed, while sometimes no special organ exists. ”

“ Nor do we really learn much by being told that ancient authorities sometimes lie, for he evidently enjoys accumulating the fables, and cares little for showing how to discriminate their degree of veracity. He tells us, indeed, that Medea was simply a predecessor of certain modern artists, with an excellent 'recipe to make white hair black;' and that Actæon was a spirited master of hounds, who, like too many of his ancestors, went metaphorically, instead of literally, to the dogs. ”

“ Elegiac verses are inscribed on the tomb:
“Ascra rich in corn was his native land, but when Hesiod died, The land of the horse-striking Minyans holds his bones, Whose fame will rise very high in Greece When men are judged by the touchstone of artistry. 9.38.5 About Actaeon the Orchomenians had the following story. A ghost, they say, carrying a rock was ravaging the land. [38] When they inquired at Delphi, the god bade them discover the remains of Actaeon and bury them in the earth. He also bade them make a bronze likeness of the ghost and fasten it to a rock with iron. ”

“ Melaneus and shaggy Lachne; two dogs from a Cretan father and a Spartan mother, Labros and Agriodus; shrill-tongued Hylactor, and others META 1ORPHOSES BOOK III whom it were too long to name. The whole pack, keen with the lust of blood, over crags, over eliffs, over trackless rocks, where the way is hard, where here is no way at all, follow on. He flees over the very ground where he has oft-times pursued; he flees (the pity of it!) his own faithful hounds. He longs to cry out: "I am Actaeon! Recognise your own master!" But words fail his desire. All the air resounds with their baying. ”

“ Acton's life-work was, in fact, himself. Those who lament what he might have written as a historian would do well to reflect on the unique position which he held in the world of letters, and to ask themselves how far he could have wielded the influence that was his, or held the standard so high, had his own achievement been greater. Men such as Acton and Hort give to the world, by their example and disposition, more than any written volume could convey. ”

“ For Lord Acton was a thorough man of the world. An insatiable, systematic, and effective reader, he was anything but a recluse. No man had a keener zest for the society of his intellectual equals. No one took a stronger interest in the events of the day, and the gossip of the hour. His learning, though vast and genuine, was never obtruded. ”

“ He always writes as the student, never as the littérateur. Even the memorable phrases which give point to his briefest articles are judicial, not journalistic. Yet he treats of matters which range from the dawn of history through the ancient empires down to subjects so essentially modern as the vast literature of revolutionary France or the leaders of the romantic movement which replaced it. In all these writings of Acton those qualities manifest themselves, which only grew stronger with time, and gave him a distinct and unique place among his contemporaries. ”

“ Acton said he should not come back to St. Amory's again, as his record was too black to be used as a convenient reference, but Phil and I and all the fellows told him we should be only too glad to let bygones be bygones, and that he had really done the square thing at the last.
He did come back, and Phil's letters to me tell me that his old enemy is one of the most popular—deservedly—in the school, and his best friend. They are inseparable, play back together at "footer," and are variously called Gemini, Damon and Pythias, David and Jonathan, as the case may be. ”

“ Acton came on and received his hearty welcome with easy good nature. He plunged right into his contribution: "A London cabby's account of his different fares"—from the double-superfine gilt-edged individual to the fat old dowager who will have the parrot inside with her. Acton gave it perfectly. Grim, who had his ears glued to the exit door, vowed he could almost hear the swell drop his eyeglass.
Sharpe stepped on to the stage amid the polite attentions of his natural enemies. "Be a man, Sharpe." "Don't cry." "You'll see mamma soon." "Speak up." ”

“ Acton's position as a churchman is made clearer by a view of his politics. At once an admirer and an adviser of Mr. Gladstone, he probably helped more than any other single friend to make his leader a Home Ruler. Yet he was anything but a modern Radical: for liberty was his goddess, not equality, and he dreaded any single power in a State, whether it was the King, or Parliament, or People. N either popes nor princes, not even Pro- testant persecutors, did Acton condemn more deeply than the crimes of majorities and the fury of uncontrolled democracy. ”

“ Acton had annihilated Rossal, Shrewsbury, and Harrow, and in the final had met the redoubtable Jarvis, from "Henry's holy shade." The delightful news circulated round St. Amory's that Acton had "made mincemeat" of Jarvis. He had not, but after a close battle had scrambled home first; he had won, and that was the main thing.
As Acton walked into chapel on Sunday morning with Worcester, Corker got scant attention to his sermon; the fags to a man were thinking of Acton's terrible left. The gladiator lived in an atmosphere of incense for a whole day. ”

“ To understand the ardour of his efforts it is necessary to bear in mind the world into which he was born, and the crises intellectual, religious, and political which he lived to witness and sometimes to influence. Born in the early days of the July monarchy, when reform in England was a novelty, and Catholic freedom a late-won boon, Acton as he grew to manhood in Munich and in England had presented to his regard a series of scenes well calculated to arouse a thoughtful mind to consideration of the deepest problems, both of politics and religion. ”

“ In fact, the only one who seemed to derive any pleasure from Bourne's prowess in the field was Acton himself. He used to sit near the flag-staff, and when Phil made his splendid late cut, whose applause was so generous as his? whose joy so great? Acton's manoeuvres were on the highest artistic levels, I can assure you, and in the eyes of the fellows generally, his was a case of persecuted forgiving virtue. Acton, too, kept in old Corker's good books, and his achievements in the way of classics made the old master beam upon him with his keen blue eye. ”

“ Doubtless one who gave himself no credit for practical aptitude in public affairs, admired a man who had gifts that were not his own. But what Acton most admired was what many condemned. It was because he was not like Lord Palmerston, because Bismarck disliked him, because he gave back the Transvaal to the Boers, and tried to restore Ireland to its people, because his love of liberty never weaned him from loyalty to the Crown, and his politics were part of his religion, that Acton used of Gladstone language rarely used, and still more rarely applicable, to [Pg xxiv] any statesman. ”

“ Acton, an adventurer of English birth, who became prime minister of Naples, but was driven from the helm of affairs on account of his inveterate antipathy to the French (1737-1808) .
Acton, Lord, a descendant of the former, who became a leader of the Liberal Catholics in England, M.P. for Carlow, and made a peer in 1869; a man of wide learning, and the projector of a universal history by experts in different departments of the field; b. ”

“ At the time of the Commonwealth Acton was a centre of Puritanism. Philip Nye (d. 1672) was rector; Richard Baxter, Sir Matthew Hale (Lord Chief-Justice) , Henry Fielding the novelist and John Lindley the botanist (d. 1865) are famous names among residents here. Acton Wells, of saline waters, had considerable reputation in the 18th century. ”

“ A curious subject on a vase at Athens appears to be the burial of Aktaeon, Artemis being present. [306] She is also represented at the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, for whom a stag was substituted by her agency, [307] and in connection with the same story at her shrine in Tauris. [308] She is especially associated with Apollo in such scenes as the contest with and flaying of Marsyas, [309] the rape of the Delphic tripod by Herakles [310] and the subsequent reconciliation, [311] or the appearance of Orestes at Delphi. ”

“ He stood for a spirit of unwavering and even childlike faith united to a passion for scientific inquiry, and a scorn of consequences, which at times made him almost an iconoclast. His whole life was dedicated to one high end, the aim of preaching the need of principles based on the widest induction and the most penetrating thought, as the only refuge amid the storm and welter of sophistical philosophies and ecclesiastical intrigues. The union of faith with knowledge, and the eternal supremacy of righteousness, this was the message of Acton to mankind. ”

“ When the Carthusians were played, Acton spent the afternoon reading with Raven, whose exam, was now very near; and, whilst the two were grinding out all the absurd details of Horace and his patron, "and the poet's little farm, and the other rot which gains Perry Exhibitions," the shouts and cheers of the school down at the Acres came floating up the hill to their room.
The school lost their match with the Carthusians—the match which a good St. Amorian would rather win than any two others—and it was plain that Dick, though a useful fellow, could not bottle up the forwards in the Actonian style. ”

“ Never before had a young man come into the presence of such intensity of conviction as was shown by every word Lord Acton spoke. It took possession of the whole being, and seemed to enfold it in its own burning flame. And the fires below on which it fed were, at least for those present, immeasurable. More than all else, it was perhaps this conviction that gave to Lord Acton's Lectures their amazing force and vivacity. ”

“ I felt very small."
"If that's so, you'll feel cheaper and smaller when pater sees you. I'd have those hands cured first."
"Bourne," said Acton, very seriously, "I've been an arrant cad since I've come to St. Amory's, and if those horses hadn't bolted with your mater I should never have seen in you anything but a strait-laced prig, as I've all along thought you. I have, really. But that's all changed now, and I'm going to dry up. I suppose you know you aren't popular among the fellows generally?"
"Rather!" said Phil, gloomily. ”

“ For, to be sure of one's ground, one must meet one's adversaries' strongest arguments, and not be content with merely picking holes in his armour. Otherwise one's own belief may be at the mercy of the next clever opponent. The reader may doubt how far Acton succeeded in his own aim, for there was a touch of intolerance in his hatred of absolutism, and he believed himself to be divided from his ecclesiastical and political foes by no mere intellectual difference but by a moral cleavage. ”

“ The Amorians, who trusted to Acton as they would have trusted to no one else on earth, entered into the fun of the thing, and the last joke of the night was a solemn warning to Grim from Dick Worcester to avoid snoring, as he valued his life. ”

“ Acton Threw Him Into The Snow-heap.
"The pig bleeds," said Acton, cheerfully. "You have him now, Bourne; he's too sick to have an ounce of fight left in him. Time!"
The next round wasn't a round really; it was a procession, with Bourne, as fresh as paint from his success, following up the other blubbing with rage, pain, and sickness. Before Acton called, the fellow dropped to the ground and howled dismally.
"Get your coat, Jack, and then come here. He's done. Stand back, you others." ”

“ Amory's reassembled after the holidays Acton found himself firmly established in the good graces of the fellows, and, indeed, he was not far from being the most popular fellow in the place, but poor Phil was looked coldly upon by those who had been his chiefest friends, and, by those who knew little of him, he passed for a jealous bounder. ”