Among Famous Books | Page 9

the heart of man. To the Hebrew, the beauty
of the world was dangerous, and man must learn to turn away his eyes
from beholding vanity.
The legend of Medusa is a story of despair, and there is little room in it
for idealism of any kind; and yet there may be some hint, in the
reflecting shield of Perseus, of a brighter and more heartening truth.
The horror of the world we have always with us, and for all exquisite
spirits like those of the Greeks there is the danger of their being marred
by the brutality of the universe, and made hard and cold in rigid
petrifaction by the too direct vision of evil. Yet for such spirits there is
ever some shield of faith, in whose reflection they may see the darkest
horrors and yet remain flesh and blood. Those who believe in life and
love, whose religion--or at least whose indomitable clinging to the
beauty they have once descried--has taught them sufficient courage in
dwelling upon these things, may come unscathed through any such
ordeal. But for that, the story is one of sheer pagan terror. It came out
of the old, dark pre-Olympian mythology (for the Gorgons are the
daughters of Hades), and it embodied the ancient truth that the sorrow
of the world worketh death. It is a tragic world, and the earth-bound,
looking upon its tragedy, will see in it only the macabre, and feel that
graveyard and spectral air which breathes about the haunted pagan
sepulchre.
Another myth in which we see the contrast between essential paganism
and idealism is that of Orpheus. The myth appears in countless forms
and with innumerable excrescences, but in the main it is in three
successive parts. The first of these tells of the sweet singer loved by all
the creatures, the dear friend of all the world, whose charm nothing that
lived on earth could resist, and whose spell hurt no creature whom it
allured. The conception stands in sharp contrast to the ghastly statuary
that adorned Medusa's precincts. Here, with a song whose sweetness
surpassed that of the Sirens, nature, dead and living both (for all lived
unto Orpheus), followed him with glad and loving movement. Nay, not
only beasts and trees, but stones themselves and even mountains, felt in

the hard heart of them the power of this sweet music. It is one of the
most perfect stories ever told--the precursor of the legends that
gathered round Francis of Assisi and many a later saint and artist. It is
the prophecy from the earliest days of that consummation of which
Isaiah was afterwards to sing and St. Paul to echo the song, when
nature herself would come to the perfect reconciliation for which she
had been groaning and travailing through all the years.
The second part of the story tells of the tragedy of love. Such a man as
Orpheus, if he be fortunate in his love, will love wonderfully, and
Eurydice is his worthy bride. Dying, bitten by a snake in the grass as
she flees from danger, she descends to Hades. But the surpassing love
of the sweet singer dares to enter that august shadow, not to drink the
Waters of Lethe only and to forget, but also to drink the waters of
Eunoe and to remember. His music charms the dead, and those who
have the power of death. Even the hard-hearted monarch of hell is
moved for Orpheus, who
"Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek, And made hell grant what love
did seek."
But the rescue has one condition. He must restrain himself, must not
look upon the face of his beloved though he bears her in his arms, until
they have passed the region of the shadow of death, and may see one
another in the sunlight of the bright earth again. The many versions of
the tragic disobedience to this condition bear eloquent testimony, not
certainly to any changing phase of the sky, but to the manifold aspects
of human life. According to some accounts, it was the rashness of
Orpheus that did the evil--love's impatience, that could not wait the
fitting time, and, snatching prematurely that which was its due,
sacrificed all. According to other accounts, it was Eurydice who
tempted Orpheus, her love and pain having grown too hungry and blind.
However that may be, the error was fatal, and on the very eve of
victory all was lost. It was lost, not by any snatching back in which
strong hands of hell tore his beloved from the man's grasp. Within his
arms the form of Eurydice faded away, and as he clutched at her his
fingers closed upon the empty air. That, too, is a law deep in the nature

of things. It is by no