accomplished tradition; but only as the seed contains the flower. As the
intelligence and passion of the race develop, they cling to and nourish
their beloved and sacred legend; leaf by leaf it expands under the touch
of more pure affections, and more delicate imagination, until at last the
perfect fable burgeons out into symmetry of milky stem and honied bell.

8. But through whatever changes it may pass, remember that our right
reading of it is wholly dependent on the materials we have in our own
minds for an intelligent answering sympathy. If it first arose among a
people who dwelt under stainless skies, and measures their journeys by
ascending and declining stars, we certainly cannot read their story, if
we have never seen anything above us in the day but smoke, nor anything
around us in the night but candles. If the tale goes on to change clouds
or planets into living creatures,--to invest them with fair forms and
inflame them with mighty passions,--we can only understand the story of
the human-hearted things, in so far as we ourselves take pleasure in the
perfectness of visible form, or can sympathize, by an effort of
imagination, with the strange people who had other loves than those of
wealth, and other interests than those of commerce. And, lastly, if the
myth complete itself to the fulfilled thoughts of the nation, by
attributing to the gods, whom they have carved out of their fantasy,
continual presence with their own souls; and their every effort for good
is finally guided by the sense of the companionship, the praise, and the
pure will of immortals, we shall be able to follow them into this last
circle of their faith only in the degree in which the better parts of our
own beings have been also stirred by the aspects of nature, or
strengthened by her laws. It may be easy to prove that the ascent of
Apollo in his chariot signifies nothing but the rising of the sun. But
what does the sunrise itself signify to us? If only languid return to
frivolous amusement, or fruitless labor, it will, indeed, not be easy for