The enthusiast adores Greece—not knowing that Greece monarchies over him, only because it is a miraculous mirror that resplendently and more beautifully reflects—himself—
"Divisque videbit
Permixtos Heroas, et Ipse, videbitur illis."
SEWARD.
Very fine.
NORTH.
O life of old, and long, long ago! In the meek, solemn, soul-stilling hush of Academic Bowers!
SEWARD.
The Isis!
NORTH.
My youth returns. Come, spirits of the world that has been! Throw open the valvules of these your shrines, in which you stand around me, niched side by side, in visible presence, in this cathedral-like Library! I read Historian, Poet, Orator, Voyager—a life that slid silently away in shades, or that bounded like a bark over the billows. I lift up the curtain of all ages—I stand under all skies—on the Capitol—on the Acropolis. Like that magician whose spirit, with a magical word, could leave his own bosom to inhabit another, I take upon myself every mode of existence. I read Thucydides, and I would be a Historian—Demosthenes, and I would be an Orator—Homer, and I dread to believe myself called to be, in some shape or other, a servant of the Muse. Heroes and Hermits of Thought—Seers of the Invisible—Prophets of the Ineffable—Hierophants of profitable mysteries—Oracles of the Nations—Luminaries of that spiritual Heaven! I bid ye, hail!