Charles Wheeler agreed with me in thinking the Orphic Hymns of very late origin.
Margaret could not see the use of creating a race of giants to prepare the earth for pygmies! If these must exist, why not in some other sphere? She referred to the beautiful Persian fable. The first was God, of course; since man may always revert to Him, what matter about the giants?
I said that primitive ages were supposed to be innocent rather than great.
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.