{"product_id":"2940013499584","title":"THE LADY, OR THE TIGER?","description":"In the very olden time there lived a semi-barbaric king, whose ideas,\u003cbr\u003ethough somewhat polished and sharpened by the progressiveness of\u003cbr\u003edistant Latin neighbors, were still large, florid, and untrammeled, as\u003cbr\u003ebecame the half of him which was barbaric. He was a man of exuberant\u003cbr\u003efancy, and, withal, of an authority so irresistible that, at his will,\u003cbr\u003ehe turned his varied fancies into facts. He was greatly given to\u003cbr\u003eself-communing, and, when he and himself agreed upon anything, the\u003cbr\u003ething was done.  When every member of his domestic and political\u003cbr\u003esystems moved smoothly in its appointed course, his nature was bland\u003cbr\u003eand genial; but, whenever there was a little hitch, and some of his\u003cbr\u003eorbs got out of their orbits, he was blander and more genial still, for\u003cbr\u003enothing pleased him so much as to make the crooked straight and crush\u003cbr\u003edown uneven places.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAmong the borrowed notions by which his barbarism had become semified\u003cbr\u003ewas that of the public arena, in which, by exhibitions of manly and\u003cbr\u003ebeastly valor, the minds of his subjects were refined and cultured.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut even here the exuberant and barbaric fancy asserted itself. The\u003cbr\u003earena of the king was built, not to give the people an opportunity of\u003cbr\u003ehearing the rhapsodies of dying gladiators, nor to enable them to view\u003cbr\u003ethe inevitable conclusion of a conflict between religious opinions and\u003cbr\u003ehungry jaws, but for purposes far better adapted to widen and develop\u003cbr\u003ethe mental energies of the people. This vast amphitheater, with its\u003cbr\u003eencircling galleries, its mysterious vaults, and its unseen passages,\u003cbr\u003ewas an agent of poetic justice, in which crime was punished, or virtue\u003cbr\u003erewarded, by the decrees of an impartial and incorruptible chance.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen a subject was accused of a crime of sufficient importance to\u003cbr\u003einterest the king, public notice was given that on an appointed day the\u003cbr\u003efate of the accused person would be decided in the king's arena, a\u003cbr\u003estructure which well deserved its name, for, although its form and plan\u003cbr\u003ewere borrowed from afar, its purpose emanated solely from the brain of\u003cbr\u003ethis man, who, every barleycorn a king, knew no tradition to which he\u003cbr\u003eowed more allegiance than pleased his fancy, and who ingrafted on every\u003cbr\u003eadopted form of human thought and action the rich growth of his\u003cbr\u003ebarbaric idealism.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47079507001584,"sku":"2940013499584","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013499584_p0.jpg?v=1763581681","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013499584","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}