Margaret said at this point (I don’t see with what pertinency) that Carlyle displeased her by making so much of mere men.
James Clarke quoted Milton, speaking of himself among the revellers of the Stuart Court, as like Orpheus among the Bacchanals.
I said that Bode placed Homer in the tenth century before Christ, and Orpheus in the age just preceding, say the thirteenth century before.
Mr. Mack thought all that mere conjecture.
I told him it made a good deal of difference to me whether the Orphic Mythology came before or after that of Homer. Had man grown out of the noble and into the base idea? Was all our knowledge only memory? Had the Orphic fancies no beauty till the Platonic Christians shaped them?
Margaret responded to what I said, that she did not like a mind always looking back.
E. P. P. said there was a great deal of consolation in it. Memory was prophecy. She didn’t like such a mind, but since she happened to have it she wanted support for it.
Mr. Mack said all history offered such support.
Charles Wheeler didn’t like to believe it, but felt that he must. He spoke of the Golden Age.