ts of the
world from those terrible natural phenomena, like the earthquake and the
hurricane, before which man lies helpless and astounded, a child beneath
the foot of a giant. Nature was to them not so inhospitable as to starve
their brains and limbs, as it has done for the Esquimaux or Fuegian; and
not so bountiful as to crush them by its very luxuriance, as it has
crushed the savages of the tropics. They saw enough of its strength to
respect it; not enough to cower before it: and they and it have fought it
out; and it seems to me, standing either on London Bridge or on a Holland
fen-dyke, that they are winning at last. But they had a sore battle: a
battle against their own fear of the unseen. They brought with them, out
of the heart of Asia, dark and sad nature-superstitions, some of which
linger among our peasantry till this day, of elves, trolls, nixes, and
what not. Their Thor and Odin were at first, probably, only the thunder
and the wind: but they had to be appeased in the dark marches of the
forest, where hung rotting on the sacred oaks, amid carcases of goat and
horse, the carcases of human victims. No one acquainted with the early
legends and ballads of our race, but must perceive throughout them all
the prevailing tone of fear and sadness. And to their own superstitions,
they added those of the Rome which they conquered. They dreaded the
Roman she-poisoners and witches, who, like Horace's Canidia, still
performed horrid rites in grave-yards and dark places of the earth. They
dreaded as magical the delicate images engraved on old Greek gems. They
dreaded the very Roman cities they had destroyed. They were the work of
enchanters. Like the ruins of St. Albans here in England, they were all
full of devils, guarding the treasures which the Romans had hidden. The
Caesars became to them magical man-gods. The poet Virgil became the
prince of necromancers. If the secrets of Nature were to be known, they
were to be known by unlawful means, by prying into the mysteries of the
old heathen magicians, or of the Mohammedan doctors of Cordova and
Seville; and those who dared to do so were respected and feared, and
often came to evil ends. It needed moral courage, then, to face and
interpret fact. Such brave men as Pope Gerbert, Roger Bacon, Galileo,
even Kepler, did not lead happy lives; some of them found themselves in
prison. All the medieval sages--even Albertus Magnus--were stigmatised
as magicians. One