So that, on the
whole, the best things he did were done as in the presence, or for the
honour, of his gods; and, whether in statues, to help him to imagine
them, or temples raised to their honour, or acts of self-sacrifice
done in the hope of their love, he brought whatever was best and
skilfullest in him into their service, and lived in a perpetual
subjection to their unseen power. Also, he was always anxious to know
something definite about them; and his chief books, songs, and
pictures were filled with legends about them, or specially devoted to
illustration of their lives and nature.
Next to these gods, he was always anxious to know something about his
human ancestors; fond of exalting the memory, and telling or painting
the history of old rulers and benefactors; yet full of an enthusiastic
confidence in himself, as having in many ways advanced beyond the best
efforts of past time; and eager to record his own doings for future
fame. He was a creature eminently warlike, placing his principal pride
in dominion; eminently beautiful, and having great delight in his own
beauty; setting forth this beauty by every species of invention in
dress, and rendering his arms and accoutrements superbly decorative of
his form. He took, however, very little interest in anything but what
belonged to humanity; caring in no wise for the external world, except
as it influenced his own destiny; honouring the lightning because it
could strike him, the sea because it could drown him, the fountains
because they gave him drink, and the grass because it yielded him
seed; but utterly incapable of feeling any special happiness in the
love of such things, or any earnest emotion about them, considered as
separate from man; therefore giving no time to the study of
them;--knowing little of herbs, except only which were hurtful and
which healing; of stones, only which would glitter brightest in a
crown, or last the longest in a wall: of the wild beasts, which were
best for food, and which the stoutest quarry for the hunter;--thus
spending only on the lower creatures and inanimate things his waste
energy, his dullest thoughts, his most languid emotions, and reserving
all his acuter intellect for researches into his own nature and that
of the gods; all his strength of will for the acquirement of political
or moral power; all his sense of beauty for things immediately
connected with his own person and life; and all his deep affections
for domestic or divine companionship.
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