? and what real belief the Greek had in these creations
of his own spirit, practical and helpful to him in the sorrow of earth?
I am able to answer you explicitly in this. The origin of his thoughts
is often obscure, and we may err in endeavoring to account or their form
of realization; but the effect of that realization on his life is not
obscure at all. The Greek creed was, of course, different in its
character, as our own creed is, according to the class of persons who
held it. The common people's was quite literal, simple, and happy; their
idea of Athena was as clear as a good Roman Catholic peasant's idea of
the Madonna. In Athens itself, the centre of thought and refinement,
Pisistratus obtained the reins of government through the ready belief of
the populace that a beautiful woman, armed like Athena, was the goddess
herself. Even at the close of the last century some of this simplicity
remained among the inhabitants of the Greek islands; and when a pretty
English lady first made her way into the grotto of Antiparos, she was
surrounded, on her return, by all the women of the neighboring village,
believing her to be divine, and praying her to heal them of their
sicknesses.

46. Then, secondly, the creed of the upper classes was more refined and
spiritual, but quite as honest, and even more forcible in its effect on
the life. You might imagine that the employment of the artifice just
referred to implied utter unbelief in the persons contriving it; but it
really meant only that the more worldly of them would play with a popular
faith of their own purposes, as doubly-minded persons have often done
since, all the while sincerely holding the same ideas themselves in a
more abstract form; while the good and unworldly men, the true Greek
heroes, lived by their faith as firmly as St. Louis, or the Cid, or the
Chevalier Bayard.

47. Then, thirdly, the faith of the poets and artists was, necessarily,
less definite, being continually modified by the involuntary action of
their own fancies; and by the necessity of presenting, in clear verbal or
material form, things of which they had no authoritative knowledge.
Their faith was, in some respects like Dante's or Milton's: firm in
general conception, but not able to vouch for every detail in the forms
they gave it; but they went considerably farther, even in that minor
sincerity, than subsequent poets; and strove with all their might to be
as near the truth as they could