Lucius was the original ass, who peeping slily from the window of his hiding-place forgot all about the big shade he cast just above him, and gave occasion to the joke or proverb about "the peeping ass and his shadow." But the marvellous, delight in which is one of the really serious elements in most boys, passed at times, those young readers still feeling its fascination, into what French writers call the macabre--that species of almost insane pre-occupation with the materialities of our mouldering flesh, that luxury of disgust in gazing on corruption, which was connected, in this writer at least, with not a little obvious coarseness.

It was a strange notion of the gross lust of the actual world, that Marius took from some of these episodes.

"I am told," they read, "that [61] when foreigners are interred, the old witches are in the habit of out-racing the funeral procession, to ravage the corpse"-- in order to obtain certain cuttings and remnants from it, with which to injure the living--"especially if the witch has happened to cast her eye upon some goodly young man." And the scene of the night-watching of a dead body lest the witches should come to tear off the flesh with their teeth, is worthy of Theophile Gautier.
But set as one of the episodes in the main narrative, a true gem amid its mockeries, its coarse though genuine humanity, its burlesque horrors, came the tale of Cupid and Psyche, full of brilliant, life-like situations, speciosa locis, and abounding in lovely visible imagery (one seemed to see and handle the golden hair, the fresh flowers, the precious works of art in it!) yet full also of a gentle idealism, so that you might take it, if you chose, for an allegory.
With a concentration of all his finer literary gifts, Apuleius had gathered into it the floating star-matter of many a delightful old story .-- The Story of Cupid and Psyche.
In a certain city lived a king and queen who had three daughters exceeding fair.

But the beauty of the elder sisters, though pleasant to behold, yet passed not the measure of human praise, while such was the loveliness of the [62] youngest that men's speech was too poor to commend it worthily and could express it not at all.

Many of the citizens and of strangers, whom the fame of this excellent vision had gathered thither, confounded by that matchless beauty, could but kiss the finger-tips of their right hands at sight of her, as in adoration to the goddess Venus herself.