"If Alcibiades spoke his real sentiments," said Aspasia, "I venture to
say he would tell us that the mystic baskets of Demeter, covered with
long purple veils, contain nothing half so much worth seeing, as the
beautiful maidens who carry them."

She looked at Pericles, and saw that he again cautioned her, by raising
the rose toward his face, as if inhaling its fragrance.

There was a brief pause, which Anaxagoras interrupted, by saying, "The
wise can never reverence images merely as images. There is a mystical
meaning in the Athenian manner of supplicating the gods with garlands on
their heads, and bearing in their hands boughs of olive twined with
wool. Pallas, at whose birth we are told gold rained upon the earth, was
unquestionably a personification of wisdom. It is not to be supposed
that the philosophers of our country consider the sun itself as anything
more than a huge ball of fire; but the sight of that glorious orb leads
the contemplative soul to the belief in one Pure Intelligence, one
Universal Mind, which in manifesting itself produces order in the
material world, and preserves the unconfused distinction of infinite
varieties."

"Such, no doubt, is the tendency of all reflecting minds," said Phidias;
"but in general, the mere forms are worshipped, apart from the sacred
truths they represent. The gods we have introduced from Egypt are
regarded by the priests of that learned land as emblems of certain
divine truths brought down from ancient times. They are like the Hermae
at our doors, which outwardly appear to rest on inexpressive blocks of
stone; but when opened, they are found to contain beautiful statues of
the gods within them. It is not so with the new fables which the Greeks
are continually mixing with their mythology. Pygmalion, as we all know,