ANTAEUS THE GIANT. 575 



flowers of man's heart and brain ; they are the first stretch- 

 ing forth of his baby hand toward the sceptre of the spiritual 

 kingship of this world ; they are the first auroral glimmer- 

 ings of his intellect gilding the distant mountain-tops of 

 the past, and flinging around the earth a wreath of sacred 

 lustres, giving life, blood, and aroma to all primeval his- 

 tories. Why do men hang with such worship and venera- 

 tion upon these hoary chronicles, stories of glories departed, 

 of gardens of blessedness passed away, with only prophecies 

 of heavens to come, postponed until their arrival in other 

 worlds ? The poverty and sorrow of the dwarfish actual 

 perpetually present to them, pressing with pain upon eye, 

 heart, and brain, give a sad and tender earnest to these 

 seductive romances which imagination, with retrospective 

 vision, delights to place in the past. Unsatisfied and crushed 

 with the present, the toils of this Egypt of the REAL have 

 only sadness for them, and a longing to wander to the ideal 

 of some happy and blissful Canaan haunts them forever. This 

 dim instinct, this dumb prayer of the soul has its origin in 

 reason and nature. For now if man be really " an angel in 

 disguise," and scarcely "less than archangel ruined," it may 

 be but the memory of "joys he has tasted," or "the light of 

 other days," and the hallowed recollections of the past, which 

 shape themselves from his inarticulate sorrow into the forms 

 of a Garden of Eden closed, a Paradise lost, a holiness that 

 knew no sin, with a fall and the curse of death, since he is 

 held constantly by longing and hope of regaining his immor- 

 tal state ; for even in his ruin he cannot forget his Father's 

 kingdom, or forego the hope of a restoration to his crown. 

 " The earth waits for her king ;" "the world prays for a man 

 to be born." How many ardent souls long for that wonderful 

 second coming ! Is the genius and majesty of man an im- 

 palpable tradition ? Is that prophet's garment of the ages 

 a harlequin mockery ? Is sin that Himalaya mountain that 

 rises before him constantly ; that Upas that springs at his 

 side with every bleeding footprint ? Are the dim prophe- 

 cies of inspired souls delusive dreams ? Must the ideal man 



