8 Introduction. 



And yet more, a still deeper meaning may be found 

 without difficulty in the representation of Proteus, not 

 as the real helper, but as the oracle pointing to the only 

 quarter in which help is to be found. All along this 

 seer is spoken of as the subject of a higher power, and 

 the real help he renders to Menelaus is by showing 

 how helpless he is unless he submit to be helped by this 

 power. Nay it may even be gleaned from the sequel to 

 the story that the Spartans would not have been so 

 long delayed in Egypt after their escape from the 

 desert island if they had been more mindful of the 

 instructions of the seer-herdsman as to their religious 

 duties and less ready to stultify themselves with the 

 nepenthe, which, in evil hour, Helen discovered in " the 

 lotus land of good eating and drinking," and which a 

 plain proof that she did not forget to take it with her 

 from Egypt to her home in Sparta she offered to 

 Telemachus when her husband's tale had come to an 

 end. 



All these thoughts passed through my mind the 

 other day as I sat in one of the stalls of the great 

 abbey which is not far from the place where I now write. 

 Before my eye was a finial on which was carved a human 

 head surrounded by what might be flowing waves or 

 flames or locks or foliage. It seemed as if the artist had 

 intended to figure Proteus at the moment when, his 

 metamorphoses ended, he was showing his readiness to 

 speak by resuming his human form. It seemed as if 

 the words when spoken would testify to communion in 

 all things if he were made to reveal his chief secret 

 respecting nature. And this impression was only 

 deepened when, a moment later, my eye chanced to 

 rest on the mosaic of the Last Supper over the altar. 

 I speak of what actually happened. While in the 



