hey can only discover it
in the written characters traced in a sacred book. All their expression
of worship is wrought through symbols. With us, the symbol is clearly
retained separate from that for which it stands, though hallowed by that
for which it stands. With them the symbol is the whole object of
affection.

On this account you will find in the men of the Desert a curious panic
in the presence of statues, which is even more severe than the panic
they suffer in the presence of wine. It is as though they said to
themselves: "Take this away; if you leave it here I shall worship it."
They are subject to possession.

Side by side with this fear of the graphic representation of men or of
animals, you will find in them an incapacity to represent them well. The
art of the iconoclasts is either childish, weak, or, at its strongest,
evil.

And especially among all these symptoms of the philosophy from which
they suffer is their manner of comprehending the nature of creation. Of
creation in any form they are afraid; and the infinite Creator is on
that account present to them almost as though He were a man, for when we
are afraid of things we see them very vividly indeed. On this account
you will find in the legends of the men of the Desert all manner of
fantastic tales incomprehensible to us Europeans, wherein God walks,
talks, eats, and wrestles. Nor is there any trace in this attitude of
theirs of parable or of allegory. That mixture of the truth, and of a
subtle unreal glamour which expands and confirms the truth, is a mixture
proper to our hazy landscapes, to our drowsy woods, and to our large
vision. We, who so often see from our high village squares soft and
distant horizons, mountains now near, now very far, according as the
weather changes: we, who are perpetually feeling the transformation of
the seasons, and who are immersed in a very ocean of manifold and
mysterious life, we need, create, and live by legends. The line between
the real and imaginary is vague and penumbral to us. We are justly
influenced by our twilights, and our imagination teaches us. How many
deities have we not summoned up to inhabit groves and lakes--special
deities who are never seen, but yet have never died?

To the men of the Desert, doubt and beauty mingled in this fashion
seemed meaningless. That which they worship they see and almost handle.
In the dreadful silence which surrounds them, their illusions turn into
convictions--the hau