t she came to me, and said, 'Is Alie
gone over the great sea?' And I said, 'Yes, she is gone over the great,
deep sea, but she will come back again some day.' Then Dotty looked
round the room; and I had just poured some water out into the basin; and
Dotty ran to it, and got up on a chair, and dashed her hands through the
water, again and again; and cried, 'Oh, deep, deep sea! send little Alie
back to me.'

L. Isn't that pretty, children? There's a dear little heathen for you!
The whole heart of Greek mythology is in that; the idea of a personal
being in the elemental power;--of its being moved by prayer;--and of its
presence everywhere, making the broken diffusion of the element sacred.

Now, remember, the measure in which we may permit ourselves to think of
this trusted and adored personality, in Greek, or in any other,
mythology, as conceivably a shadow of truth, will depend on the degree
in which we hold the Greeks, or other great nations, equal, or inferior,
in privilege and character, to the Jews, or to ourselves. If we believe
that the great Father would use the imagination of the Jew as an
instrument by which to exalt and lead him; but the imagination of the
Greek only to degrade and mislead him: if we can suppose that real
angels were sent to minister to the Jews and to punish them; but no
angels, or only mocking spectra of angels, or even devils in the shapes
of angels, to lead Lycurgus and Leonidas from desolate cradle to
hopeless grave:--and if we can think that it was only the influence of
spectres, or the teaching of demons, which issued in the making of
mothers like Cornelia, and of sons like Cleobis and Bito, we may, of
course, reject the heathen Mythology in our privileged scorn: but, at
least, we are bound to examine strictly by what faults of our own it has
come to pass, that the ministry of real angels among ourselves is
occasionally so ineffectual, as to end in the production of Cornelias
who entrust their child-jewels to Charlotte Winsors for the better
keeping of them; and of sons like that one who, the other day, in
France, beat his mother to death with a stick; and was brought in by the
jury, 'guilty, with extenuating circumstances.'

MAY. Was that really possible?

L. Yes, my dear. I am not sure that I can lay my hand on the reference
to it (and I should not have said 'the other day'--it was a year or two
ago), but you may depend on the fact; and I could give you many like it,
if I chose. Th