LILY. The morning after Alice had gone, Dotty was very sad and
restless when she got up; and went about, looking into all the
corners, as if she could find Alice in them, and at last she came
to me, and said, "Is Alie gone over the great sea?" And I said,
"Yes, she is gone over the great, deep sea, but she will come back
again some day." Then Dotty looked round the room; and I had just
poured some water out into the basin; and Dotty ran to it, and got
up on a chair, and dashed her hands through the water, again and
again; and cried, "Oh, deep, deep sea! send little Alie back to
me."
L. Isn't that pretty, children? There's a dear little heathen for
you! The whole heart of Greek mythology is in that; the idea of a
personal being in the elemental power;--of its being moved by
prayer;--and of its presence everywhere, making the broken
diffusion of the element sacred.
Now, remember, the measure in which we may permit ourselves to
think of this trusted and adored personality, in Greek, or in any
other, mythology, as conceivably a shadow of truth, will depend on
the degree in which we hold the Greeks, or other great nations,
equal, or inferior, in privilege and character, to the Jews, or to
ourselves. If we believe that the great Father would use the
imagination of the Jew as an instrument by which to exalt and lead
him; but the imagination of the Greek only to degrade and mislead
him: if we can suppose that real angels were sent to minister to
the Jews and to punish them; but no angels, or only mocking
spectra of angels, or even devils in the shapes of angels, to lead
Lycurgus and Leonidas from desolate cradle to hopeless grave:--and
if we can think that it was only the influence of specters, or the
teaching of demons, which issued in the making of mothers like
Cornelia, and of sons like Cleobis and Bito, we may, of course,
reject the heathen Mythology in our privileged scorn: but, at
least, we are bound to examine strictly by what faults of our own
it has come to pass, that the ministry of real angels among
ourselves is occasionally so ineffectual, as to end in the
production of Cornelias who entrust their child-jewels to
Charlotte Winsors for the better keeping of them; and of sons like
that one who, the other day, in France, beat his mother to death
with a stick; and was brought in by the jury, "guilty, with
extenuating circumstances."
MAY. Was that really possible?
L. Yes, my dear. I am not sure that I can lay my hand on the
reference to it (and I should not have said "the other day"--it
was a year or two ago), but you may depend on the fact; and I
could give you many like it, if I chose. There was a murder done
in Russia, very lately, on a traveler. The murderess's little
daughter was in the way, and found it out, somehow. Her mother
killed her, too, and put her into the oven. There is a peculiar
horror about the relations between parent and child, which are
being now brought about by our variously degraded forms of
European white slavery. Here is one reference, I see, in my notes
on that story of Cleobis and Bito; though I suppose I marked this
chiefly for its quaintness, and the beautifully Christian names of
the sons; but it is a good instance of the power of the King of
the Valley of Diamonds [Footnote: Notes vi.] among us.
In "Galignani" of July 21-22, 1862, is reported a trial of a
farmer's son in the department of the Yonne. The father, two years
ago, at Malay le Grand, gave up his property to his two sons, on
condition of being maintained by them. Simon fulfilled his
agreement, but Pierre would not. The tribunal of Sens condemns
Pierre to pay eighty-four francs a year to his father. Pierre
replies, "he would rather die than pay it." Actually, returning
home, he throws himself into the river, and the body is not found
till next day.
MARY. But--but--I can't tell what you would have us think. Do you
seriously mean that the Greeks were better than we are; and that
their gods were real angels?
L. No, my dear. I mean only that we know, in reality, less than
nothing of the dealings of our Maker with our fellow-men; and can
only reason or conjecture safely about them, when we have
sincerely humble thoughts of ourselves and our creeds.
We owe to the Greeks every noble discipline in literature, every
radical principle of art; and every form of convenient beauty in
our household furniture and daily occupations of life. We are
unable, ourselves, to make rational use of half that we have
received from them: and, of our own, we have nothing but
discoveries in science, and fine mechanical adaptations of the
discovered physical powers. On the other hand, the vice existing
among certain classes, both of the rich and poor, in London,
Paris, and Vienna, could have been conceived by a Spartan or Roman
of the heroic ages only as possible in a Tartarus, where fiends
were employed to teach, but not to punish, crime. It little
becomes us to speak contemptuously of the religion of races to
whom we stand in such relations; nor do I think any man of modesty
or thoughtfulness will ever speak so of any religion, in which God
has allowed one good man to die, trusting.
The more readily we admit the possibility of our own cherished
convictions being mixed with error, the more vital and helpful
whatever is right in them will become: and no error is so
conclusively fatal as the idea that God will not allow us to err,
though He has allowed all other men to do so. There may be doubt
of the meaning of other visions, but there is none respecting that
of the dream of St. Peter; and you may trust the Rock of the
Church's Foundation for true interpreting, when he learned from it
that, "in every nation, he that feareth God and worketh
righteousness, is accepted with Him." See that you understand what
that righteousness means; and set hand to it stoutly: you will
always measure your neighbors' creed kindly, in proportion to the
substantial fruits of your own. Do not think you will ever get
harm by striving to enter into the faith of others, and to
sympathize, in imagination, with the guiding principles of their
lives. So only can you justly love them, or pity them, or praise.
By the gracious effort you will double, treble--nay, indefinitely
multiply, at once the pleasure, the reverence, and the
intelligence with which you read: and, believe me, it is wiser and
holier, by the fire of your own faith to kindle the ashes of
expired religions, than to let your soul shiver and stumble among
their graves, through the gathering darkness, and communicable
cold.
MARY (after some pause). We shall all like reading Greek history
so much better after this! but it has put everything else out of
our heads that we wanted to ask.
L. I can tell you one of the things; and I might take credit for
generosity in telling you; but I have a personal reason--Lucilla's
verse about the creation.