The young duchess and her sisters looked up in mute wonder at the speaker, but the duke cried, "Hear, hear!" and the elder ladies tried to look wise and responsive.
Mr. Godfrey continued: "That is god to a man which his mind worships and reveres, and which to the extent of his power he strives to imitate. Julian, the Roman emperor, understood this well. He felt (what time has proved true) that the human frame must degenerate when its proportionate and due development ceases to be the primary object of the legislator. He saw that when, instead of these glorious physical powers, there is substituted a pale, emaciated figure nailed to a cross for the glorification of an ideal good, that all nature's teachings must become confused, and a fake romance lead to decay the powers that heretofore were so beautiful in their proportions."
"Surely, papa, you do not believe in paganism," said Hester, wonderingly.
"Yes and no, Hester. In the fables of the personal divinity of Jupiter, Venus, and Minerva—No! In paganism as the expression of a grand idea, well suited to man's capabilities, and to his nature—Yes! You must not confound the hidden meaning of the myth with the outward expression. The uninstructed multitude will always look to the outward, and believe the fables as facts, whatever religion they profess, and often times they penetrate no further; but the learned look through the myth to the meaning, and the meaning of the pagan myth is,—Cultivate physical strength, in union with intellectual power, worship beauty, study and contrast nature. Destroy infirmity: it is the most humane way, and the most just way. Do not perpetuate disease. Let all ill-constituted children die. Let the conquered—i.e., the weaker—serve; it belongs to the strong to rule. To develop the physical frame duly, Lycurgus caused even the young women to wrestle publicly, without drapery of any kind. Our more fastidious tastes cramp the form of our women, and distort the figure; and, worse than this, our perverted theology distorts their intellect, and makes it afraid even to look at the human form. Again, I say, Julian was right. The Christianity he forsook has caused not only the degeneration of human power, but has substituted false ideas of good. The real has given place to the ideal, and a sickly, romantic, sentimentalized race has taken the place of the hardy heroes of antiquity."
And Mr. Godfrey bowed profoundly to the deities before him.
The duke laughed and clapped his hands. "Well said, Mr. Godfrey, well said. I hardly knew till now, how great a benefactor I was to the human race when I collected these statues. Hitherto I have thrown open my house but once a week for the public benefit. Henceforth I will direct my steward to allow instructions oftener in this temple of the true gods of the earth. By the by, I believe there is a very good chance of restoring this gone-by worship, if, as you say, it consists in the exaltation of physical power. Science, in its diffusion, is fixing men's minds on material agencies, very much to the exclusion of superstitious ideality. We have only to throw in a vein of the love of beauty, and much will be effected toward bringing back men's minds to the natural worship, here so beautifully symbolized."
"I believe so," said Mr. Godfrey; "but, meantime, how much evil has been effected by letting in upon the race so many delicate constitutions! How shall we restore the hardy races that peopled the earth, when these mighty types of glory ruled the populations?"
"Indeed, it is difficult to say. Men have accustomed themselves to a false estimate of mere vitality, as if life without enjoyment were worth the having. We shall, I fear, find it difficult to persuade English mothers to destroy their diseased and crippled children for the good of the public, or to train their daughters in the gymnasium."
"Would you seriously wish it, my lord duke?" asked his wife.