It appears, lastly, in the development of the dialogue and in the progress of the event. We have a succession of rapidly shifting scenes, all equally distinct, all equally lifelike. The place, the hour, the persons; the chief Traveller throwing Himself wearily down on the well side; the disciples despatched to the neighbouring village to buy food; the approach of the woman; the conversation commenced; the ever-varying phases of emotion produced by the stranger’s words; the first surprise, ‘Thou, a Jew;’ the surprise exchanged for remonstrance, ‘Sir, the well is deep;’ the prompt desire, the dawning intelligence, ‘Give me this water;’ the parrying of the home-thrust, ‘I have no husband;’ the intermingling of an eager curiosity on a great theological question with a no less eager desire to divert the conversation from an inconvenient personal turn, ‘I perceive that Thou art a prophet;’ the wish to evade the responsibility of a decision upon this question by indefinite postponement: ‘When Messias is come, He will tell us all things;’ the return of the disciples; their shocked feelings at seeing their great rabbi thus forgetting himself; the hurried departure of the woman, her pitcher left behind and her errand unfulfilled; the feminine eagerness to tell the news to her neighbours; the natural exaggeration covering the instinctive reticence, not ‘He told me that I was living a life of shame,’ but ‘He told me all that ever I did.’