Note 246 — Chapter VI

One of the few passages which would raise a laugh even to-day is the rapturous speech with which good Basilius greets the morning after his "mistakes of a night": "Should fancy of marriage keep me from this paradise? or opinion of I know not what promise bind me from paying the right duties to nature and affection? O who would have thought there could have been such difference betwixt women? Be jealous no more O Gynecia, but yield to the preheminence of more excellent gifts," &c. (bk. iv. p. 410). See also the ridiculous fight between Clinias and Dametas pp. 276 et seq.; and a story told in verse, bk. iii. p. 390. Molière built his "Ecole des maris" upon a similar plot.