Margaret replied, that she had not attempted that, but she could see it in all the prominent points.
Charles Wheeler said that the varieties of anecdote proved that the stories were not all authentic. It was an ancient custom to strike off medals in honor of certain acts of the Gods. To these graven pictures the common people gave their own vulgar interpretations, as they did also to the bas-reliefs on their temples and monuments.
E. P. P. said this accounted for many of the stories transmitted by Homer. When sculpture and architecture had lost their meaning, his inventive genius was only the more stimulated to find one.
Charles Wheeler asked what Margaret would make of the story that the tears of Isis frightened children to death?
There was a general laugh, but Margaret said coolly, that children always shrank from a baffled hope.
Some one contrasted Persephone with her mother.
Margaret assented to whatever was said, and added that she had been particularly struck with it in an engraving she had recently seen, in which Ceres stood with lifted eyes, full-eyed, matronly, bounteous, ready to give all to all, while Persephone, dejected and thoughtful, sat meditating; and the idea was strengthened by her discovering that Persephone was the same as Ariadne the deserted. I could only guess at the remark by Margaret’s comment. It seemed to imply baffled hope for Persephone.
The Eleusinian mysteries were now alluded to. Although it has been said that only moral precepts were inculcated through these, Wheeler urged that a whole school of Continental authors now acknowledged that the higher doctrines of philosophy were taught.
R. W. E. added, that as initiation became more easy such instruction must have degenerated into a mere matter of form, and many of the uninitiated surpass the initiated in wisdom.