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.
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