MARGARET said the Persian fable bore to the same point as the Vishnu and Brahma. It was antagonism that produced all things. The universe at first was one Conscious Being,—“I am;” no word, no darkness, no light. This Conscious Being needed to know itself, and it passed into darkness and light and a third being,—the Mediator between the two. This Trinity produced ideals,—men, animals, things; and after a period of twelve thousand years all return again into the One, who has gained by the phenomena only a multiplied consciousness. “Were they _merged_?” asked CHARLES WHEELER. MARGARET said, “No! once created, they could not lose identity.” C. W. HEALEY. April 30, 1841. X. BACCHUS AND THE DEMIGODS. _May 6, 1841._ Few present. Our last talk, and we were all dull. For my part, Bacchus does not inspire me, and I was sad because it was the last time that I should see Margaret. She does not love me; I could not venture to follow her into her own home, and I love her so much! Her life hangs on a thread. Her face is full of the marks of pain. Young as I am, I feel old when I look at her. MARGARET spoke of Hercules as representing the course of the solar year. The three apples were the three seasons of four months each into which the ancients divided it. The twelve labors were the twelve signs. E. P. P. accepted this, and spoke of Bryant’s book, which Margaret did not like. MARGARET said Bryant forced every fact to be a point in a case. Bending each to his theory, he falsified it. She wished English people would be content, like the wiser Germans, to amass classified facts on which original minds could act. She liked to see the Germans so content to throw their gifts upon the pile to go down to posterity, though the pile might carry no record of the collectors. She spoke of Kreitzer, whose book she was now reading, who coolly told his readers that he should not classify a second edition afresh, for his French translator had done it well enough, and if readers were not satisfied with his own work, they must have recourse to the translation. This she thought was as it ought to be. JAMES CLARKE said it always vexed him to hear ignorant people speak of Hercules as if he were a God, and of Apollo and Jupiter as if they might at some time have been men. MARGARET said, Yes, the distinction between Gods and Demigods was that the former were the creations of pure spontaneity, and the latter actually existent personages, about whose heroic characters and lives all congenial stories clustered. J. F. C. did not like the statues of Hercules; the brawny figure was not to his taste.