It is, as you say, strongly connected with this disposition in the human
mind, to produce—and believe in Power in external nature—Nymphs, Genii,
Fairies, Neptune, Vulcan, Apollo, and every belief in mythology. This
disposition is, the moment it sees effects which strongly affect it, to
embody upon the spot the cause or power which produced them. In doing
this in the old unenlightened world, it filled Nature with Deities, and
not Nature only, but the human mind and life. Love was a Deity; Fear and
Anger were; Remorse was in the Furies; Memory was Mnemosyne; Wisdom was
in Pallas; Fortune was, and Ate; and Necessity and Death were Deities.
TALBOYS.
I seem to have heard all that a thousand times before.
SEWARD.
So much the better. In some of Homer’s descriptions, names that look
like Impersonations are mixed with acknowledged Deities—Remorse, for
instance, with Fear and Flight, which Virgil copies. Now, I don’t know
what he meant. I hope, for the sincerity and simplicity of his poetry,
that they are not his own Impersonations for the occasion, walking with
Deities of national belief.
TALBOYS.
Eh?
SEWARD.
The moment you allegorise fabulous poetry—that is, admit it to have been
allegorically written, you destroy from it the childlike verity of
belief.
TALBOYS.
Eh?
NORTH.
Now in whatever way we are to understand these Impersonations, the
result as to our question is much the same.
SEWARD.
What question, sir?
NORTH.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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