The Crown of Wild Olive Part 58

L. I have asked you to hear that, children, because, from all that we have seen in the work and play of these past days, I would have you gain at least one grave and enduring thought. The seeming trouble,--the unquestionable degradation,--of the elements of the physical earth, must pa.s.sively wait the appointed time of their repose, or their restoration.

It can only be brought about for them by the agency of external law. But if, indeed, there be a n.o.bler life in us than in these strangely moving atoms;--if, indeed, there is an eternal difference between the fire which inhabits them, and that which animates us,--it must be shown, by each of us in his appointed place, not merely in the patience, but in the activity of our hope; not merely by our desire, but our labour, for the time when the Dust of the generations of men shall be confirmed for foundations of the gates of the city of G.o.d. The human clay, now trampled and despised, will not be,--cannot be,--knit into strength and light by accident or ordinances of una.s.sisted fate. By human cruelty and iniquity it has been afflicted;--by human mercy and justice it must be raised: and, in all fear or questioning of what is or is not, the real message of creation, or of revelation, you may a.s.suredly find perfect peace, if you are resolved to do that which your Lord has plainly required,--and content that He should indeed require no more of you,--than to do Justice, to love Mercy, and to walk humbly with Him.

FOOTNOTES:

[153] Note vi.

NOTES.

NOTE I.

Page 24.

_'That third pyramid of hers.'_

Throughout the dialogues, it must be observed that 'Sibyl' is addressed (when in play) as having once been the c.u.maean Sibyl; and 'Egypt' as having been queen Nitocris,--the Cinderella, and 'the greatest heroine and beauty' of Egyptian story. The Egyptians called her 'Neith the Victorious' (Nitocris), and the Greeks 'Face of the Rose' (Rhodope).

Chaucer's beautiful conception of Cleopatra in the 'Legend of Good Women,' is much more founded on the traditions of her than on those of Cleopatra; and, especially in its close, modified by Herodotus's terrible story of the death of Nitocris, which, however, is mythologically nothing more than a part of the deep monotonous ancient dirge for the fulfilment of the earthly destiny of Beauty; 'She cast herself into a chamber full of ashes.'

I believe this Queen is now sufficiently ascertained to have either built, or increased to double its former size, the third pyramid of Gizeh: and the pa.s.sage following in the text refers to an imaginary endeavour, by the Old Lecturer and the children together, to make out the description of that pyramid in the 167th page of the second volume of Bunsen's 'Egypt's Place in Universal History'--ideal endeavour,--which ideally terminates as the Old Lecturer's real endeavours to the same end always have terminated. There are, however, valuable notes respecting Nitocris at page 210 of the same volume: but the 'Early Egyptian History for the Young,' by the author of Sidney Gray, contains, in a pleasant form, as much information as young readers will usually need.

NOTE II.

Page 25.

_'Pyramid of Asychis.'_

This pyramid, in mythology, divides with the Tower of Babel the shame, or vain glory, of being presumptuously, and first among great edifices, built with 'brick for stone.' This was the inscription on it, according to Herodotus:--

'Despise me not, in comparing me with the pyramids of stone; for I have the pre-eminence over them, as far as Jupiter has pre-eminence over the G.o.ds. For, striking with staves into the pool, men gathered the clay which fastened itself to the staff, and kneaded bricks out of it, and so made me.'

The word I have translated 'kneaded' is literally 'drew;' in the sense of drawing, for which the Latins used 'duco;' and thus gave us our 'ductile' in speaking of dead clay, and Duke, Doge, or leader, in speaking of living clay. As the a.s.serted pre-eminence of the edifice is made, in this inscription, to rest merely on the quant.i.ty of labour consumed in it, this pyramid is considered, in the text, as the type, at once, of the base building, and of the lost labour, of future ages, so far at least as the spirits of measured and mechanical effort deal with it: but Neith, exercising her power upon it, makes it a type of the work of wise and inspired builders.

NOTE III.

Page 25.

_'The Greater Pthah.'_

It is impossible, as yet, to define with distinctness the personal agencies of the Egyptian deities. They are continually a.s.sociated in function, or hold derivative powers, or are related to each other in mysterious triads; uniting always symbolism of physical phenomena with real spiritual power. I have endeavoured partly to explain this in the text of the tenth Lecture: here, it is only necessary for the reader to know that the Greater Pthah more or less represents the formative power of order and measurement: he always stands on a four-square pedestal, 'the Egyptian cubit, metaphorically used as the hieroglyphic for truth;'

his limbs are bound together, to signify fixed stability, as of a pillar; he has a measuring-rod in his hand; and at Philae, is represented as holding an egg on a potter's wheel; but I do not know if this symbol occurs in older sculptures. His usual t.i.tle is the 'Lord of Truth.'

Others, very beautiful: 'King of the Two Worlds, of Gracious Countenance,' 'Superintendent of the Great Abode,' &c., are given by Mr.

Birch in Arundale's 'Gallery of Antiquities,' which I suppose is the book of best authority easily accessible. For the full t.i.tles and utterances of the G.o.ds, Rosellini is as yet the only--and I believe, still a very questionable--authority; and Arundale's little book, excellent in the text, has this great defect, that its drawings give the statues invariably a ludicrous or ign.o.ble character. Readers who have not access to the originals must be warned against this frequent fault in modern ill.u.s.tration (especially existing also in some of the painted casts of Gothic and Norman work at the Crystal Palace). It is not owing to any wilful want of veracity: the plates in Arundale's book are laboriously faithful: but the expressions of both face and body in a figure depend merely on emphasis of touch; and, in barbaric art, most draughtsmen emphasise what they plainly see--the barbarism; and miss conditions of n.o.bleness, which they must approach the monument in a 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 a.s.sociation. There are more statues of Pasht in the British Museum than of any other Egyptian deity; several of them fine in workmans.h.i.+p; 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 G.o.ddess 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 G.o.ddess 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 ill.u.s.trate 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 G.o.ddess 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 princ.i.p.al 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 pa.s.sionate tenderness, which is the real root of his pa.s.sionate anger. Ulysses is her favourite chiefly in her office as the G.o.ddess of conduct and design.

NOTE IV.

Page 54.

_'Geometrical limitations.'_

It is difficult, without a tedious accuracy, or without full ill.u.s.tration, to express the complete relations of crystalline structure, which dispose minerals to take, at different times, fibrous, ma.s.sive, 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. Mitch.e.l.l, 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 n.o.body 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?