“And who,” says Pater, “that has rested a hand on the glittering silex of a vineyard slope in August, where the pale globes of sweetness are lying, does not feel this? It is out of the bitter salts of a smitten, volcanic soil that it comes up with the most curious virtues.... In thinking of Dionysus, then, as fire-born, the Greeks apprehend and embody the sentiment, the poetry, of all tender things which grow out of a hard soil, or in any sense blossom before the leaf, like the little mezereon-plant of English gardens, with its pale-purple, wine-scented flowers upon the leafless twigs in February, or like the almond-trees of Tuscany, or Aaron’s rod that budded, or the staff in the hand of the Pope when Tannhäuser’s repentance is accepted.” And then, too, Dionysus is born of the dew—of the freshness, the solace, of liquid in a hot land. “Think of the darkness of the well in the breathless court, with the delicate ring of ferns kept alive just within the opening; of the sound of the fresh water flowing through the wooden pipes into the houses of Venice, on summer mornings.” It is this combining of symbolism that Pater believes to be so characteristic of the Greek sentiment: “the religious imagination of the Greeks being, precisely, a unifying or identifying power, bringing together things naturally asunder, making, as it were, for the human body a soul of waters, for the human soul a body of flowers.” And with it all, in the conception of this mystical impassioned Deity, goes a deep sadness, the sadness of one who is old though everlastingly young, who has seen a thousand fair things fade, year after year, the flowers withering in the sheltered places, the trees losing their rich summer foliage; he has seen generation after generation arise in grace and beauty, thirsting for life, coming with new wonder to taste the sweet mysteries; and they too have gone; he knows the secrets of the grave; he knows that though new life arises, the old life, the old passionate identities, are not restored. He himself defies death and the violence of traitorous people, infuriated by the sorrows that follow so hard in the path of joy; he is slain, but arises again with strength renewed and sadness increased; thus the vision glows, and fades, and glows again.