ALCOTT wanted to know why Christ was not as much an impersonation of a human faculty as either of the Greek Deities! MARGARET said Jesus was not a thought. He was born on the earth, and lived out a thought. He was no abstraction to her, but a brother. ALCOTT wanted to know whether a purer mythology, suited to the wants of coming time, might not arise from the mixed mythology of Persians, Greeks, and Christians! A very confusing and tiresome talk arose thereupon, which Charles Wheeler smiled at, but did not join in, and which profited nobody. CAROLINE WELLS HEALEY. April 3, 1841. VI. CUPID AND PSYCHE. _April 9, 1841._ MARGARET thought it would be very impertinent to begin by telling what everybody knew,—the old story of Cupid and Psyche. E. P. P. declared that Margaret never told it twice alike, and at last she yielded and said:— The beautiful young princess Psyche was envied by Venus, who sent Eros to destroy her; but the God, finding Psyche wholly lovely, wedded her. They lived happily until Psyche began to doubt. Eros had told her that she must not seek to know him; but curiosity prevailed over faith, and in looking at him as he slept she wounded and waked him. He left her in dismay; and as a punishment the three trials which are the lot of mortals were awarded to her. She must sort grain, she must bring three drops from the river Styx, and must get the box of beauty from Proserpine. The birds helped her with the grain; but when she reached the banks of the Styx and stooped to fulfil the second task, she found the water too dark, too cold, and the eagle came to her aid. At the prospect of the third trial her soul sank; she refused to undertake it; but, winning from one of the Gods the secret of self-dependence, she set off for Tartarus, gave the usual sop to Cerberus, and returned with her prize. But she was “possessed” with the idea that the treasures the box contained might restore to her her husband’s love, and she opened the box as she came. The noxious vapors which issued from it deprived her of consciousness, and she fell. Eros, who had flown to seek her as soon as his wound was healed, brought her the gift of Immortality which he had begged of Jupiter. ELISABETH HOAR asked what had become of Psyche’s sisters, whose interference was a striking point in the story. MARGARET said she knew nothing of them, and wished Miss Hoar would tell us. Her own knowledge of the story was gained entirely from Raphael’s original studies, and his frescos on the walls of a Roman palace.