It is the common mistake which gathers a nimbus of mystic sense around
every book excessively revered. Thus the Greeks fancied an inner and
mystical sense in Homer; and thus Italian professors expound the esoteric
significance of Dante.
The fantastic dream of mysterious meanings in the Bible must take wings
after its kindred fancies of Greeks and Italians, at the touch of a
ripening literary judgment. One rule holds of all human letters. Where
there is legend, myth, metaphor, or other clear form of poetic fancy,
language is to be read imaginatively. Otherwise, in the Bible, as out of
it, the ordinary meaning of words must be followed.