It Is Interesting To Observe With What Singular Unanimity The
Farthest Sundered Nations And Generations Consent To Give
Completeness And Roundness To An Ancient Fable, Of Which They
Indistinctly Appreciate The Beauty Or The Truth.
By a faint and
dream-like effort, though it be only by the vote of a scientific
body, the
Dullest posterity slowly add some trait to the mythus.
As when astronomers call the lately discovered planet Neptune; or
the asteroid Astraea, that the Virgin who was driven from earth
to heaven at the end of the golden age, may have her local
habitation in the heavens more distinctly assigned her, - for the
slightest recognition of poetic worth is significant. By such
slow aggregation has mythology grown from the first. The very
nursery tales of this generation, were the nursery tales of
primeval races. They migrate from east to west, and again from
west to east; now expanded into the "tale divine" of bards, now
shrunk into a popular rhyme. This is an approach to that
universal language which men have sought in vain. This fond
reiteration of the oldest expressions of truth by the latest
posterity, content with slightly and religiously retouching the
old material, is the most impressive proof of a common humanity.
All nations love the same jests and tales, Jews, Christians, and
Mahometans, and the same translated suffice for all. All men are
children, and of one family. The same tale sends them all to
bed, and wakes them in the morning.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 57 of 422
Words from 15675 to 15924
of 116321
