Then, through creative thought,--that is, thought quickened
and exalted by an inward thirst for the beautiful,--one little corner
of Europe became radiant, and the valley of Tempe and the wooded glens
of Parnassus shone for the first time on the vision of men; for their
eyes--opened from long sleep by inward stirring--were become as
mirrors, and gave back the light of nature:
"Auxiliar light
Came from their minds, which on the setting sun
Bestowed new splendor."[1]
[1] Wordsworth.
And man, heated by the throbs of his swelling heart, made gods after
his own image,--forms of such life and power and harmony that the
fragments of them, spared by time, are still guarded as faultless
models of manhood. And the vales and groves and streams were peopled
with beauteous shapes. And the high places were crowned with temples
which, in their majestic purity, look as though they had been posited
there from above by heavenly hands. And by the teemful might of
sculptors and painters and poets the dim past was made resurgent and
present in glorious transfiguration. And the moral law was grasped at
by far-reaching philosophies.
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