] of divine wisdom never yet surpassed. In Egypt, too, the
Sphynx, walking the earth with lion tread, looked out upon its marvels
in the calm, inscrutable beauty of a virgin's face, and the Greek
could only add wings to the great emblem. In Greece, Ceres and
Proserpine, significantly termed "the great goddesses," were seen
seated side by side. They needed not to rise for any worshipper or any
change; they were prepared for all things, as those initiated to their
mysteries knew. More obvious is the meaning of these three forms, the
Diana, Minerva, and Vesta. Unlike in the expression of their beauty,
but alike in this,--that each was self-sufficing. Other forms were
only accessories and illustrations, none the complement to one like
these. Another might, indeed, be the companion, and the Apollo and
Diana set off one another's beauty. Of the Vesta, it is to be
observed, that not only deep-eyed, deep-discerning Greece, but ruder
Rome, who represents the only form of good man (the always busy
warrior) that could be indifferent to Woman, confided the permanence
of its glory to a tutelary goddess, and her wisest legislator spoke of
meditation as a nymph.
Perhaps in Rome the neglect of Woman was a reaction on the manners of
Etruria, where the priestess Queen, warrior Queen, would seem to have
been so usual a character.
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