The Crown of Wild Olive
different temper before they will discover, and draw with great subtlety
before they can express.
The character of the Lower Pthah, or perhaps I ought rather to say, of
Pthah in his lower office, is sufficiently explained in the text of the
third Lecture; only the reader must be warned that the Egyptian
symbolism of him by the beetle was not a scornful one; it expressed only
the idea of his presence in the first elements of life. But it may not
unjustly be used, in another sense, by us, who have seen his power in
new development; and, even as it was, I cannot conceive that the
Egyptians should have regarded their beetle-headed image of him
(Champollion, 'Pantheon,' pl. 12), without some occult scorn. It is the
most painful of all their types of any beneficent power; and even among
those of evil influences, none can be compared with it, except its
opposite, the tortoise-headed demon of indolence.
Pasht (p. 24, line 32) is connected with the Greek Artemis, especially
in her offices of judgment and vengeance. She is usually lioness-headed;
sometimes cat-headed; her attributes seeming often trivial or ludicrous
unless their full meaning is known; but the enquiry is much too wide to
be followed here. The cat was sacred to her; or rather to the sun, and
secondarily to her. She is alluded to in the text because she is always
the companion of Pthah (called 'the beloved of Pthah,' it may be as
Judgment, demanded and longed for by Truth); and it may be well for
young readers to have this fixed in their minds, even by chance
association. There are more statues of Pasht in the British Museum than
of any other Egyptian deity; several of them fine in workmanship; nearly
all in dark stone, which may be, presumably, to connect her, as the
moon, with the night; and in her office of avenger, with grief.
Thoth (p. 27, line 17), is the Recording Angel of Judgment; and the
Greek Hermes Phre (line 20), is the Sun.
Neith is the Egyptian spirit of divine wisdom; and the Athena of the
Greeks. No sufficient statement of her many attributes, still less of
their meanings, can be shortly given; but this should be noted
respecting the veiling of the Egyptian image of her by vulture
wings--that as she is, physically, the goddess of the air, this bird,
the most powerful creature of the air known to the Egyptians, naturally
became her symbol. It had other significations; but certainly this, when
in connection with Neith. As representing her, it was the most important
sign, next to the winged sphere, in Egyptian sculpture; and, just as in
Homer, Athena herself guides her heroes into battle, this symbol of
wisdom, giving victory, floats over the heads of the Egyptian kings. The
Greeks, representing the goddess herself in human form, yet would not
lose the power of the Egyptian symbol, and changed it into an angel of
victory. First seen in loveliness on the early coins of Syracuse and
Leontium, it gradually became the received sign of all conquest, and the
so-called 'Victory' of later times; which, little by little, loses its
truth, and is accepted by the moderns only as a personification of
victory itself,--not as an actual picture of the living Angel who led to
victory. There is a wide difference between these two conceptions,--all
the difference between insincere poetry, and sincere religion. This I
have also endeavoured farther to illustrate in the tenth Lecture; there
is however one part of Athena's character which it would have been
irrelevant to dwell upon there; yet which I must not wholly leave
unnoticed.
As the goddess of the air, she physically represents both its beneficent
calm, and necessary tempest: other storm-deities (as Chrysaor and AEolus)
being invested with a subordinate and more or less malignant function,
which is exclusively their own, and is related to that of Athena as the
power of Mars is related to hers in war. So also Virgil makes her able
to wield the lightning herself, while Juno cannot, but must pray for the
intervention of AEolus. She has precisely the correspondent moral
authority over calmness of mind, and just anger. She soothes Achilles,
as she incites Tydides; her physical power over the air being always
hinted correlatively. She grasps Achilles by his hair--as the wind would
lift it--softly,
'It fanned his cheek, it raised his hair,
Like a meadow gale in spring.'
She does not merely turn the lance of Mars from Diomed; but seizes it in
both her hands, and casts it aside, with a sense of making it vain, like
chaff in the wind;--to the shout of Achilles, she adds her own voice of
storm in heaven--but in all cases the moral power is still the principal
one--most beautifully in that seizing of Achilles by the hair, which was
the talisman of his life (because he had vowed it to the Sperchius if he
returned in safety), and which, in giving at Patroclus' tomb, he,
knowingly, yields up the hope of return to his country, and signifies
that he will die with his friend. Achilles and Tydides are, above all
other heroes, aided by her in war, because their prevailing characters
are the desire of justice, united in both with deep affections; and, in
Achilles, with a passionate tenderness, which is the real root of his
passionate anger. Ulysses is her favourite chiefly in her office as the
goddess of conduct and design.
NOTE IV.
Page 54.
_'Geometrical limitations.'_
It is difficult, without a tedious accuracy, or without full
illustration, to express the complete relations of crystalline
structure, which dispose minerals to take, at different times, fibrous,
massive, or foliated forms; and I am afraid this chapter will be
generally skipped by the reader: yet the arrangement itself will be
found useful, if kept broadly in mind; and the transitions of state are
of the highest interest, if the subject is entered upon with any
earnestness. It would have been vain to add to the scheme of this little
volume any account of the geometrical forms of crystals: an available
one, though still far too difficult and too copious, has been arranged
by the Rev. Mr. Mitchell, for Orr's 'Circle of the Sciences'; and, I
believe, the 'nets' of crystals, which are therein given to be cut out
with scissors and put prettily together, will be found more conquerable
by young ladies than by other students. They should also, when an
opportunity occurs, be shown, at any public library, the diagram of the
crystallisation of quartz referred to poles, at p. 8 of Cloizaux's
'Manuel de Mineralogie': that they may know what work is; and what the
subject is.
With a view to more careful examination of the nascent states of silica,
I have made no allusion in this volume to the influence of mere
segregation, as connected with the crystalline power. It has only been
recently, during the study of the breccias alluded to in page 113, that
I have fully seen the extent to which this singular force often modifies
rocks in which at first its influence might hardly have been suspected;
many apparent conglomerates being in reality formed chiefly by
segregation, combined with mysterious brokenly-zoned structures, like
those of some malachites. I hope some day to know more of these and
several other mineral phenomena (especially of those connected with the
relative sizes of crystals), which otherwise I should have endeavoured
to describe in this volume.
NOTE V.
Page 102.
_'St. Barbara.'_
I would have given the legends of St. Barbara, and St. Thomas, if I had
thought it always well for young readers to have everything at once told
them which they may wish to know. They will remember the stories better
after taking some trouble to find them: and the text is intelligible
enough as it stands. The idea of St. Barbara, as there given is founded
partly on her legend in Peter de Natalibus, partly on the beautiful
photograph of Van Eyck's picture of her at Antwerp: which was some time
since published at Lille.
NOTE VI.
Page 137.
_'King of the Valley of Diamonds.'_
Isabel interrupted the Lecturer here, and was briefly bid to hold her
tongue; which gave rise to some talk, apart, afterwards, between L. and
Sibyl, of which a word or two may be perhaps advisably set down.
SIBYL. We shall spoil Isabel, certainly, if we don't mind: I was glad
you stopped her, and yet sorry; for she wanted so much to ask about the
Valley of Diamonds again, and she has worked so hard at it, and made it
nearly all out by herself. She recollected Elisha's throwing in the
meal, which nobody else did.
L. But what did she want to ask?
SIBYL. About the mulberry trees and the serpents; we are all stopped by
that. Won't you tell us what it means?
L. Now, Sibyl, I am sure you, who never explained yourself, should be
the last to expect others to do so. I hate explaining myself.
SIBYL. And yet how often you complain of other people for not saying
what they meant. How I have heard you growl over the three stone steps
to purgatory; for instance!
L. Yes; because Dante's meaning is worth getting at; but mine matters
nothing: at least, if ever I think it is of any consequence, I speak it
as clearly as may be. But you may make anything you like of the serpent
forests. I could have helped you to find out what they were, by giving a
little more detail, but it would have been tiresome.
SIBYL. It is much more tiresome not to find out. Tell us, please, as
Isabel says, because we feel so stupid.
L. There is no stupidity; you could not possibly do more than guess at
anything so vague. But I think, you, Sibyl, at least, might have
recollected what first dyed the mulberry?
SIBYL. So I did; but that helped little; I thought of Dante's forest of
suicides, too, but you would not simply have borrowed that?
L. No. If I had had strength to use it, I should have stolen it, to beat
into another shape; not borrowed it. But that idea of souls in trees is
as old as the world; or at least, as the world of man. And I _did_ mean
that there were souls in those dark branches; the souls of all those who
had perished in misery through the pursuit of riches; and that the river
was of their blood, gathering gradually, and flowing out of the valley.
That I meant the serpents for the souls of those who had lived
carelessly and wantonly in their riches; and who have all their sins
forgiven by the world, because they are rich: and therefore they have
seven crimson crested heads, for the seven mortal sins; of which they
are proud: and these, and the memory and report of them, are the chief
causes of temptation to others, as showing the pleasantness and
absolving power of riches; so that thus they are singing serpents. And
the worms are the souls of the common money-getters and traffickers, who
do nothing but eat and spin: and who gain habitually by the distress or
foolishness of others (as you see the butchers have been gaining out of
the panic at the cattle plague, among the poor),--so they are made to
eat the dark leaves, and spin, and perish.
SIBYL. And the souls of the great, cruel, rich people who oppress the
poor, and lend money to government to make unjust war, where are they?
L. They change into the ice, I believe, and are knit with the gold; and
make the grave dust of the valley. I believe so, at least, for no one
ever sees those souls anywhere.
(SIBYL _ceases questioning._)
ISABEL (_who has crept up to her side without any one's seeing_). Oh,
Sibyl, please ask him about the fire-flies!
L. What, you there, mousie! No; I won't tell either Sibyl or you about
the fire-flies; nor a word more about anything else. You ought to be
little fire-flies yourselves, and find your way in twilight by your own
wits.
ISABEL. But you said they burned, you know?
L. Yes; and you may be fire-flies that way too, some of you, before