dreams, does not surprise us. The power
of second sight may seem natural to spots where nature is mysterious
and solemn, and full of change and sudden transitions from storm to
calm and from sunshine to gloom. But at Cumae there is a perpetual
peace, an unchanging monotony. The same cloudless sky overarches the
earth day after day, and dyes to celestial blue the same placid sea
that sleeps beside its shore. The fields are drowsy at noon with the
same stagnant sunshine; and the same purple glory lies at sunset on
the entranced hills; and the olive and the myrtle bloom through the
even months with no fading or brightening tint on leaf or stem; and
each day is the twin of that which has gone before. Nature in such a
region is transparent. No mist, or cloud, or shadow hides her secrets.
There is no subtle joy of despair and hope, of decay and growth,
connected with the passing of the seasons. In this Arcadian clime we
should expect Nature to lull the soul into the sleep of contentment on
her lap; and in its perpetual summer happy shepherds might sing
eclogues for ever, and, satisfied with the present, have no hope or
wish for the future. How wonderful, then, that in such a charmed
lotus-land we should meet with the mysterious unrest of soul, and the
fixed onward look of the Sibyl to times widely different from her
own.

And not only is this forward-looking gaze of the Sibyl contrary to
what we should have expected in such a changeless land of beauty and
ease; it is also contrary to what we should have expected from the
paganism of the people. It is characteristic of the Greek religion, as
indeed of all heathen religions, that its golden age should be in the
past. It instinctively clings to the memory of a former happier time,
and shrinks from the unknown future. Its piety ever looks backward,
and aspires to present safety or enjoyment by a faithful imitation of
an imaginary past. It is always "returning on the old well-worn path
to the paradise of its childhood," and contrasting the gloom that
overhangs the present with the radiance that shone on the morning
lands. In every crisis of terror or disaster it turns with unutterable
yearnings to the tradition of the happy age. Or, if it does look
forward to the future, it always pictures "the restoration of the old
Saturnian reign"; it has no standard of future excellence or future
blessedness to attain to, and no yearnings for consummation and
perfection hereafter. The very na