MARGARET said she could keep up no intimacy with books. She loved a book dearly for a while; but as soon as she began to look out a nice Morocco cover for her favorite, she was sure to take a disgust to it, to outgrow it. She did not mean that she outgrew the author, but that, having received all from him that he could give her, he tired her. That had even been the case with Shakespeare! For several years he was her very life; then she gave him up. About two years ago she had occasion to look into “Hamlet,” and then wished to refresh her love, but found it impossible. It was the same with Ovid, whose luxuriant fancy had delighted her girlhood. She took him up, and read a little with all her youthful glow; but it would not last. Friends must part, but why need we part from our books? She regretted her oddity, for she lost a great solace by it. She proceeded to contrast the Apollo with Mercury. In Egypt, Hermes was the experimental Deity, the Brahma. CAROLINE STURGIS asked what the Hermes on the door-posts of the Athenian houses meant. MARGARET thought that he posed there as a messenger, an opener of the gates merely, and then spoke of several Mercuries by Raphael. One she knew, so full of beauty and grace that it seemed a single trumpet-tone. Another all loveliness was handing the cup of life to Psyche. She wondered that such symbols as Apollo and Mercury did not inspire all young men with ardor, and make them something better than young men usually are. WILLIAM WHITE said Apollo was too far beyond the average man to do this; but that Mercury, graceful and vivacious, would naturally attract the attention. MARGARET asked if he would be an easier model to imitate, and then repeated her anecdote about the ugly youth who longed to be a Mercury. WILLIAM said that if his faith had been strong enough, the transformation might have taken place. Query—what is meant by strong _enough_? MARGARET spoke of the Egyptian Osiris in his relation to Hermes, and said that she did not like _him_ to be confounded with the Apollo. He was in reality the Egyptian Jove. This led me to speak of the Orphic Hymn in which Apollo is addressed as “immortal Jove.” MARGARET said she had discovered very little about Orpheus. In relation to the five points of Orphic theology, she had lately read a posthumous leaf from Goethe’s Journal. The existence of a Dæmon seemed to be a favorite idea of his. He did not believe with Emerson that all things were in our own souls, but that they existed in _the original souls_, (does anybody know what that means?) and we must go out to seek them. This notion Goethe thought verified by his own experience. Goethe’s works, Margaret thought, had more variety than anybody’s except Shakespeare’s. His powers of observation seemed to condense his genius. WILLIAM WHITE wondered why Goethe showed such tenderness for Byron.