state of comparative barbarism, lightlessness; behind which,
indeed, there were rumors of a much higher Past. These great
Greeks, Aeschylus, Euripides, Plato, brought in ideas which were
as old as the hills in Egypt, or in India; but which were new to
the Greece of their time--of historic times; they were, I think,
as far as their own country was concerned, innovators and
revealers; not voicers of a traditional wisdom; it may have
been traditional once, but that time was much too far back for
memory. I think we should have to travel over long, long ages, to
get to a time when Eleusis was a really effective link with the
Lodge--to a period long before Homer, long before Troy fell.--But
to return to the story of Alcestis:--

You might take it on some lofty impersonal plane, and find a
symbol in it; Aeschylus would have done so, somehow; though I
do not quite see how. Sophocles would have been aware of nothing
wrong in it; he would have taken it quite as a matter of course.
Euripides saw clearly that Admetus was a selfish poltroon, and
rubbed it in for all he was worth. And he could not leave
it at that, either; but for pity's sake must bring in Hercules
at the end to win back Alcestis from death. So the play is
great-hearted and tender, and a covert lash for conventional
callousness; and somehow does not quite hang together:--leaves
you just a little uncomfortable. Browning calls him, in
_Balaustion's Adventure,_

".... Euripides
The human, with his droppings of warms tears";

--it is a just verdict, perhaps. Without Aeschylus' Divine Wisdom,