ical meaning of the shipwreck of Ulysses, and his
escape from Charybdis by help of her fig-tree; but as I should have had
to go on to the lovely myth of Leucothea's veil, and did not care to
spoil this by a hurried account of it, I left it for future examination;
and, three days after the paper was published, observed that the
reviewers, with their customary helpfulness, were endeavouring to throw
the whole subject back into confusion by dwelling on this single (as
they imagined) oversight. I omitted also a note on the sense of the word
[Greek: lygron], with respect to the pharmacy of Circe, and herb-fields
of Helen, (compare its use in Odyssey, xvii., 473, &c.), which would
farther have illustrated the nature of the Circean power. But, not to be
led too far into the subtleties of these myths, observe respecting them
all, that even in very simple parables, it is not always easy to attach
indisputable meaning to every part of them. I recollect some years ago,
throwing an assembly of learned persons who had met to delight
themselves with interpretations of the parable of the prodigal son,
(interpretations which had up to that moment gone very smoothly,) into
mute indignation, by inadvertently asking who the _un_prodigal son was,
and what was to be learned by _his_ example. The leading divine of the
company, Mr. Molyneux, at last explained to me that the unprodigal son
was a lay figure, put in for dramatic effect, to make the story
prettier, and that no note was to be taken of him. Without, however,
admitting that Homer put in the last escape of Ulysses merely to make
his story prettier, this is nevertheless true of all Greek myths, that
they have many opposite lights and shades; they are as changeful as
opal, and like opal, usually have one colour by reflected, and another
by transmitted light. But they are true jewels for all that, and full of
noble enchantment for those who can use them; for those who cannot, I am
content to repeat the words I wrote four years ago, in the appendix to
the _Two Paths_--

"The entire purpose of a great thinker may be difficult to fathom, and
we may be over and over again more or less mistaken in guessing at his
meaning; but the real, profound, nay, quite bottomless and unredeemable
mistake, is the fool's thought, that he had _no_ meaning."

APPENDIX VI.--(p. 84)

The derivation of words is like that of rivers: there is one real
source, usually small, unlikely, and difficult to find, fa