* * * * *
THE CHOICE OF HERCULES.
When Hercules was in that part of his youth in which it was natural for
him to consider what course of life he ought to pursue, he one day
retired into a desert, where the silence and solitude of the place very
much favoured his meditations. As he was musing on his present
condition, and very much perplexed in himself on the state of life he
should choose, he saw two women, of a larger stature than ordinary,
approaching towards him. One of them had a very noble air, and graceful
deportment; her beauty was natural and easy, her person clean and
unspotted, her eyes cast towards the ground with an agreeable reserve,
her motion and behaviour full of modesty, and her raiment as white as
snow. The other had a great deal of health and floridness in her
countenance, which she had helped with an artificial white and red; and
she endeavoured to appear more graceful than ordinary in her mien, by a
mixture of affectation in all her gestures. She had a wonderful
confidence and assurance in her looks, and all the variety of colours in
her dress, that she thought were the most proper to shew her complexion
to advantage. She cast her eyes upon herself, then turned them on those
that were present, to see how they liked her, and often looked on the
figure she made in her own shadow.
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