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THE
One Hundred Eighty-two
sacrifice and even of ruin-of an indestruc-
tible health.”
Heathenism is to him a healthy way of think-
ing, and its outcome a healthy way of life.
There was an amazing lack of delusion under
the clear light of reason in the Golden Age.
These gods of such mingled passions and
powers were not immortal. Themis was Jove’s
assessor; Moira tore the thread of god and
man alike, was mightier than either, and
dwelt in darkness beyond human or divine
calculation. Nietzsche, by the way, points
out that it was this supreme and incalculable
Moira, standing to the Greek for chance,
accident or fate, that Christianity boldly
transforms into its one true God. The Chris-
tian explained to the world that this omnip-
otent and sequestered power was not such
a haphazard affair as had been supposed, but
something conscious, something subtler,
steadier and more far-seeing than human
intellect could reach or measure. It was, in
fact, not a Power, but a Will. To the disciples
of which myth the philosopher puts a perti-
nent question: “ If our intellect can not
divine the intellect and aims of God, how did
it divine this quality of its intellect and this
quality of God’s intellect? ”
And today it seems to me that the line of
the Greeks is still the right line-to be
followed on modern values so For Will we
are agreed to substitute Power; for a con-
scious controller, unconscious force, since only
on the assumption of unconscious force can
conscious intelligence find any clue to the
riddle. But there is not one force, there are
many; and they clash, as the gods of the
Greeks clashed. The games go on forever,
and the agonists are still men; the drama
unfolds fresh scenes, but the protagonists are
no longer gods or demi-gods: they are the
great forces of Nature, warring upon each
other and hindering or assisting humanity as
of yore. It is true that he fears them no
longer, for the tables are turned: he has even
chained certain of them, and taught them to
do his bidding. But the slaves revolt, and
some there are who will roam forever unfet-
tered. There remain passwords that we shall
not know; there are arcana which we can not‘
enter. And that is well, for man, despite
Protagoras and the realists, is not the measure
of all things. There persists for him rational
and abiding mystery; and these pines of
FIIFI
March
Vallombrosa still whisper more than he will
ever understand.
The Spirit of Pan
YV1 TURNED then upon later time, and
saw two mighty figures moving together
in earnest speech amid the trees. Here Milton
and Galileo walked; these somber woodlands
heard their speculations, and doubtless the
older man tempered the fierce dogmatism of
the poet presently to be.
One wishes that Landor had made a dialogue
of them, with Vallombrosa for theater; but
his imaginary conversation between the young
giant and the old happens otherwhere: in
prison he places it, and his art fills the brief
dialogue full of implicit drama. We see Milton
stalking savagely up and down, his bosom
bursting with the sage’s suffering; we hear
the old, blind genius speak tenderly and
patiently. “The spirit of liberty wakes mad
enthusiasm, and leaves behind it bitter dis-
appointment,” says he, for his reflections are
tinctured with age and sad experience. Then
there is that line answer, when Milton hopes
that the great man's sentence will be short so
“ It may be, or not, as God wills. It is for
life.” so so
Again that large survey won of his work.
“ We may know that there are other worlds,
and we may hope that they are happier.”
We stand there still with Galileo.
Laugh too at a word spoken in the very spirit
of Milton’s virile scorn for all things frozen,
paltry and mean.
“An academician, a dunghill-cock, and a worm
are three sides of an equilateral triangle !”
So being now in tune with medieval time, I
came presently to that steep place whence
the Enemy of Man hurled San Giovanni
Gualberto headlong into the torrent below,
and I puzzled not a little to explain the saint’s
deliverance so so
Solution fiashed upon me like a sunbeam!
Obvious it is that most excellent Pan, scent-
ing brimstone from afar and little liking the
later goat-footed celebrity, hid beside the
waterfall to receive the descending Christian
in his mighty arms. And that the god won a
special blessing for such service none familiar
with Gualberto’s spirit will hesitate most
heartily to affirm.
Society is punished in the measure that it
punishes so. so