This allegory has been a favourite one with many deep and lofty
thinkers. They mixed it, now and then, with Greek fancies; and
brought Phoebus, Apollo, and the Muses into the Temple of Wisdom.
But whatever they added to the allegory, they always preserved the
allegory itself. No words, they felt, could so well express what
Wisdom was, and how it was to be obtained by man.
The stately Temple, built by mystic rules of art; the glorious Lady,
at once its Architect, its Priestess, and its Queen; the feast spread
within for all who felt in themselves divine aspirations after what
is beautiful, and good, and true; the maidens fair and pure, sent
forth throughout the city, among the millions intent only on selfish
gain or selfish pleasure, to call in all who were not content to be
only a more crafty kind of animal, that they might sit down at the
feast among the noble company of guests,--those who have inclined
their heart to wisdom, and sought for understanding as for hid
treasures:- this is a picture which sages and poets felt was true;
true for all men, and for all lands. And it will be, perhaps, looked
on as true once more, as natural, all but literally exact, when we
who are now men are in our graves, and you who are now boys will be
grown men; in the days when the present soulless mechanical notion of
the world and of men shall have died out, and philosophers shall see
once more that Wisdom is no discovery of their own, but the
inspiration of the Almighty; and that this world is no dead and dark
machine, but alight with the Glory, and alive with the Spirit, of
God.
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