the
world unfallen; Sparta has in it the deep scission of the soul, which,
however, is at present healed after many wanderings and struggles.
Nestor, as we have seen, is quite without inner conflict; Menelaus and
Helen represent a long, long training in the school of error,
tribulation, misfortune. Pylos is the peace before the fall, Sparta is
the peace after the fall, yet with many reminiscences of the latter.
This Fourth Book reaches out beyond Greece, beyond the Trojan War, it
goes beyond the Hellenic limit in Space and Time, it sweeps backward
into Egypt and the Orient. It is a marvelous Book, calling for our best
study and reflection; certainly it is one of the greatest compositions
of the human mind. Its fundamental note is restoration after the grand
lapse; witness Helen, and Menelaus too; the Third Book has no
restoration, because it has no alienation.

The account of the various Returns from Troy is continued. In the
preceding Book we had those given by Nestor, specially his own, which
was without conflict. He is the man of age and wisdom, he does not fall
out with the Gods, he does not try to transcend the prescribed limits,
he is old and conservative. The Returns which he speaks of beside his
own, are confined to the Greek world; that was the range of his vision.

But now in the Fourth Book we are to hear of the second great Return,
in which two Greeks participate, Menelaus and Helen. This Return is by
way of the East, through Egypt, which is the land of ancient wisdom for
the Greek man, and for us too. It is the land of the past to the
Hellenic mind, whither the person who aspires to know the antecedents
of himself and his culture must travel; or, he must learn of those who
have been there, if he cannot go himself. Egyptian lore, which had a
great influence upon the early Greek world in its formative period,
must have some reflection in this primitive Greek book of education. So
Telemachus, to complete his discipline, must reach beyond Greece into
the Orient, he must get far back of Troy, which was merely an
orientalizing Hellenic city; he must learn of Egypt. Thus he transcends
the national limit, and begins to obtain an universal culture.

But the moment we go beyond the Greek world with its clear plastic
outlines, the artistic form changes; the Hellenic sunshine is tinged
with Oriental shadows; we pass from the unveiled Zeus to the veiled
Isis. Homer himself gets colored with touches of Oriental myster