TALBOYS.
Good, Seward.
SEWARD.
It is, as you say, strongly connected with this disposition in the human mind, to produce—and believe in Power in external nature—Nymphs, Genii, Fairies, Neptune, Vulcan, Apollo, and every belief in mythology. This disposition is, the moment it sees effects which strongly affect it, to embody upon the spot the cause or power which produced them. In doing this in the old unenlightened world, it filled Nature with Deities, and not Nature only, but the human mind and life. Love was a Deity; Fear and Anger were; Remorse was in the Furies; Memory was Mnemosyne; Wisdom was in Pallas; Fortune was, and Ate; and Necessity and Death were Deities.
TALBOYS.
I seem to have heard all that a thousand times before.
SEWARD.
So much the better. In some of Homer’s descriptions, names that look like Impersonations are mixed with acknowledged Deities—Remorse, for instance, with Fear and Flight, which Virgil copies. Now, I don’t know what he meant. I hope, for the sincerity and simplicity of his poetry, that they are not his own Impersonations for the occasion, walking with Deities of national belief.
TALBOYS.
Eh?